Teacher using shared Google account for kids

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xpd

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#177608 8-Aug-2015 20:42

Had a friend come round tonight with their grandson, who had a laptop with him - he asked me to have a look at it and install Minecraft etc on it, so I start to do that.

I noticed that in Chrome, there were all these unusual bookmarks for a kids laptop, such as IRD, Bunnings, various email providers etc - the grandparents have their own PC and never use the kids one, so I knew it wasnt their bookmarks. Then I notice that Chrome is logged into a Google account. Bought up the account screen to find a womans name - queried the kid about it.

"Thats my teacher, she logs into everyones laptop with her account so we can share files through Google drive/Gmail"

My immediate reaction was "WTF" - so potentially theres 30 kids laptops (and maybe some Mum and Dads laptops) that now have this teachers Google account setup on their system.

I am mortified to think that someone thinks doing this is fine for a bunch of 8-9 year olds - theres security issues, privacy issues and more. If this teacher was "dodgy" (99.9% sure they aren't :) ) then who knows what they could have been sharing etc to these kids.

My kids go to the same school, but don't take computers/tablets at this point, and to be honest, after seeing this , I wont be letting them.

I'm hoping this is just a single (uneducated) teacher that hasnt thought things through and not a school wide method of sharing stuff.

Ill be taking it up with the school and see what their response is........

Or am I being paranoid/over protective ? :-p

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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meow
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#1361295 8-Aug-2015 20:57

There is absolutely no excuse for teachers to do this seeing schools get free Google apps. I've seen many schools using Google Apps for Schools + Chromebooks which gives the teachers full control over the classroom and also gives them the advantage of sharing via Google Apps to the class with ease.

I think this school really needs to get their IT upgraded.

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gzt

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#1361296 8-Aug-2015 20:59

Most likely teacher is clueless, but from a geek point of view it is weird as.

I'd suggest notifying the school formally and explain why this is a bad idea and potentially weird..

For example the teacher probably has access to all the students web history and vice versa. That could be a very embarrassing situation for either party.

On the positive side you can probably force a logout of all sessions : ) and the problem is solved for the weekend for everyone and the rest can be sorted Monday.

[Edit: doh except saved passwords]

nakedmolerat

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#1361325 9-Aug-2015 00:06

It isn't a big deal if the account was made especially for the classroom. It's a funny way of doing this.

Jase2985

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#1361382 9-Aug-2015 06:48

nakedmolerat: It isn't a big deal if the account was made especially for the classroom. It's a funny way of doing this.

Doesnt look like its the case if it has all those bookmarks etc there. looks like its just a personal account thats been logged in on all the devices.

its a funny way of doing it considering you can just set up a folder on google drive and share it with other peoples google accounts.

Then they just log in with their own account and can access/edit/upload files to that folder.

Its what we do for shared uni projects.

jmh

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#1361392 9-Aug-2015 08:08

As a teacher, I would expect a school to have an IT security/safety policy which a parent can read, and a teacher with allocated responsibility for IT. Sometimes this person is the maths teacher who might not be that IT savvy. Find out who this is and pop along and have a chat about some better alternatives. It would be good for IT safety to be taught as part of the lesson when the kids are the right age. Maybe you could do some free consultancy for them.

Batman

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#1361393 9-Aug-2015 08:12

most likely teacher is clueless. hopefully she's nothing to hide!

DizzyD

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#1361410 9-Aug-2015 09:38

xpd:
"Thats my teacher, she logs into everyones laptop with her account so we can share files through Google drive/Gmail"

My immediate reaction was "WTF" - so potentially theres 30 kids laptops (and maybe some Mum and Dads laptops) that now have this teachers Google account setup on their system.

I am mortified to think that someone thinks doing this is fine for a bunch of 8-9 year olds - theres security issues, privacy issues and more. If this teacher was "dodgy" (99.9% sure they aren't :) ) then who knows what they could have been sharing etc to these kids.

You do know that its against googles T&C for 8-9 year olds to have their own personal google accounts?

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1350409?hl=en

The school needs to be setup to use google apps for education. If they have not done that then what this teacher is doing is wrong.

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xpd

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#1361424 9-Aug-2015 10:19

Ive emailed the teacher directly with my concerns and said I hope its just an oversight that it was left logged in...... see what they say.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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MikeB4

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#1361430 9-Aug-2015 10:24

At this point I wouldn't panic or call the teacher "clueless", on Monday ring or call in and see the teacher it is probably an innocent mistake.

MadEngineer

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#1361499 9-Aug-2015 13:31

DizzyD:

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1350409?hl=en

The school needs to be setup to use google apps for education. If they have not done that then what this teacher is doing is wrong.

^This.

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JayADee

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#1361528 9-Aug-2015 14:27

I'm guessing mistake? Kids should have their own google account through Google Apps for Education. It's a laptop not a chromebook? Chrome books have an 'owner' account. If it was a chromebook, I'd guess the 'owner' account was accidentally left logged in.