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We explore the risks arising from the use and misuse of digital devices and electronic communication tools. We interview experts in the fields of cybersafety, cybersecurity, privacy, parenting, and technology and share the wisdom of these experts with you!
Welcome to the Cyber Traps podcast once again.
We are here live at Inch 360 here on the beautiful Gonzaga University campus in Spokane, Washington.
And we have with us Andy Jones, who recently won an achievement award.
And so, Andy, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Sure, yeah.
My name's Andy Jones.
I work for the Educational Service District 1 0 1 in northeast Washington.
We support school districts all over northeast Washington.
There's 59 public districts along with several private and charter schools as well.
So, my role is I'm the director of technology services.
We do everything from you know, getting Chromebooks ready for students.
Do network service support, cybersecurity, like if it's IT related, it's something that we, we help support schools with.
So,
and because of how the ESD is structured, you mostly service.
The smaller districts that don't have the capacity for their own IT
That's right.
Yeah.
A lot of the larger schools are part of our technology services cooperative.
But as far as like us putting hands, hands-on, a lot of that is smaller districts that can't afford full-time.
Technology support.
Yeah.
So tell us what led to you re receiving this award today?
I believe it's just the work that done in our region.
Mostly around everyone knows that
what's one thing, schools don't have enough of money, so how do we make cybersecurity solutions affordable for school districts?
And so I've done a lot of work working with vendors to basically put together like group orders or group purchases to drive down the cost to make cybersecurity solutions, whether it's like X-D-R-N-D-R any sort of cyber solution, affordable.
Part of that has been through grants that I've applied for and so at no cost to the schools at this time.
And the rest of them have just been.
You have those group orders where we kind of put all our numbers together to get the discount on it.
Yeah.
Well, and as this podcast is focused on education mostly one of the things is.
We know that cybersecurity is an educational thing.
You need to understand enough, but you don't have to be like, certified to be able to make smart choices.
And so a lot of what we talk about here is how do you protect people without forcing them to become cybersecurity nerds, right?
And so what would be your answer to that?
How do you help people stay safe without, making them learn so much that it's like a another bachelor's degree.
Yeah, and I guess when you look at from my perspective, we have schools that.
The quote unquote tech person in their district is either like a librarian, the transportation director, sometimes it's the elementary PE teacher.
So we know that we're not gonna have cybersecurity experts, but a lot of it's just about awareness.
Like, Hey, these are things you wanna protect yourself from.
Not only like at the school level, but at the personal level too.
So, whether it's coming in where we've partnered with like Eastern Washington University to come in and do like a cyber assessment to kind of get that outside perspective.
We've done a lot of Work, excuse me, work with CSA as well, doing the same thing.
Like, Hey, we want these guys to, 'cause sometimes for us it's like preaching to the choir, right?
Or sometimes it.
It's only us telling them like, Hey, we need to increase our cybersecurity posture here.
So having those outside sources come in for, from like the administrative side of things to get them realize like, Hey, this is a big deal.
We need to pay more attention to it and put more resources towards cybersecurity.
But we also have done, like, we did a conference last year at the ESD where we had CSA and MS. ISAC come in and what did we even do?
Not just focused on like the nuts and bolts of cybersecurity, but how do you keep your family safe and your yourself safe?
So we're trying to look towards doing more events like that where we could actually bring like community members in and do it on like,
The family night at the school and have a little like, Hey, here's 15 minutes on, just like basic things you can do to protect yourself and why you want to do that.
Yeah.
Do you mind sharing a few things that that you would suggest at those family nights?
Yeah we've taken a lot of resource.
There's a lot of good resources out there so you don't have to reinvent the wheel
Mm-hmm.
Like
CIS' website has a lot of things on there.
That we've pulled in the past.
Maybe the CIS security side as well.
I'm not the one who actually does those, so guess I can't what content we've put out there.
But yeah, they have a lot of resources on just things you'd want to talk to about, like why you want to not use the same password everywhere why you want to put MFA on your accounts and just being a good digital citizen, when you're on the internet.
So those are kind of the topics at the family nights is why, what we would talk about.
Yeah.
So what do you think what's your perspective on how AI is coming to be and what it's looking like?
What impacts are you seeing from your perspective?
You know, we work with a lot of small and rural schools and a lot of 'em are still, like, we're not so sure about AI and what it's gonna do for us.
Schools, I guess traditionally I would say are like behind the curve as well.
And the use of ai.
So I guess the first thing that we've been doing with, and I might be weaving or excuse me, way going wayward from your question here, but we're trying to help them actually, like, Hey, you need an AI policy before we just kind of do a free for all.
And everyone's using a different kind of AI system.
There's also been an education too.
I know that there's been some articles come out that like, teachers are gonna be the first thing that can be replaced by ai.
And we almost have like a. Some schools that are like hesitant to like, no, we don't want AI our schools.
Right.
And so it, it's gonna be interesting how it plays out like over the next few years on, we have some schools that are all on board, like, we want these tools that'll help us, you know, become more efficient and in teaching.
Right?
And then some that are like, no, we don't want anything to do with
that.
Yeah.
Well, my, my perspective on that is that the great teachers will never be replaced.
But the mediocre ones absolutely can and should be replaced.
And that's sometimes a controversial opinion.
But the reality is, if an, if a computer can do your job better than you can, then it's a, it's really what's the word?
It's unfair to the students to put you in front of them when a computer could do it in a better way.
So what I keep saying to educators as I speak to 'em all across the country is.
You need to find what the AI can do, understand it, and know what you can do and understand that and see where your strengths exist so that you're not going to be replaced.
Because AI can do a lot of things, but it is not as good as a great human, is it doing anything And so until it gets to that point, which maybe it will, maybe it won't,
the jury's still out, but, you definitely have to see where you are better than it, and then using it in ways that will extend what you do so that you have more capacity.
should be honestly used together the best experience for students.
Just like technology in general, right?
Like when the whole one-to-one movement came out and like, oh, we're just gonna give every kid a Chromebook.
They're gonna be on that all day.
It's like, well, no tech technology should be a tool that's used to enhance the learning experience.
Not like we're just doing technology for the sake of doing technology
Yeah.
Well, Andy, this has been awesome.
Thanks so much for your time we look forward to learning more about what ESD is doing and I think you should probably come back on and we should talk a little more deeply about stuff and some of the specific things that you've done for your community.
'cause I think that would be a good conversation.
Perfect.
Thanks for having me.
Thank you.