Unveiling risky student tech activity

Illustration of a student in a classroom set inside a computer

Forget flipping through bulky textbooks and lugging around overloaded backpacks. Modern classrooms are a far cry from the ones we remember. Today, students have tablets and laptops at their fingertips, opening doors to a massive world of information and engaging learning experiences to promote teamwork and collaboration.

89% of K-12 instructors use educational technology in their classrooms

– Zipdo

However, this dependence on technology creates significant hurdles for IT departments. Managing access controls, file security, and group permissions for hundreds or even thousands of students within a single system can be incredibly difficult, if not insurmountable, without the proper tools.

The fog of cloud monitoring

Monitoring student technology use seems straightforward, but limited visibility across various cloud platforms creates a huge blind spot. Native admin consoles, like the Google Admin console, offer limited insights, leaving IT admins guessing about potential risks. This lack of preemptive awareness can lead to security incidents escalating before they’re addressed.

To bridge this gap, cloud monitoring solutions (like an end-to-end SaaS management platform) can provide a centralized platform for IT admins to gain comprehensive oversight of student activity across all cloud applications. These solutions aggregate data from various platforms, offering real-time insights into user behavior, application usage, and potential security threats. This allows IT teams to proactively identify and address issues before they become major problems.

Shining a Light with BetterCloud

BetterCloud empowers educational IT professionals with a comprehensive view of their cloud environment, including Google Workspace. This powerful platform automates tasks, streamlines workflows, and provides real-time insights – all crucial for proactive management.

One of BetterCloud’s standout features is its robust content scanning. This technology scans files, identifying potential threats that you can customize, like cyberbullying, self-harm ideation, or the sharing of sensitive data (PII).

Content scanning in BetterCloud with a drop down menu to take action

BetterCloud enforces your data security policies by automatically taking action on files that don’t meet compliance standards. This might involve restricting access to the file and notifying relevant individuals.

Student safety at the forefront

BetterCloud goes beyond just spotting pre-programmed keywords. You can configure BetterCloud to identify signs of distress in student communications by scanning for your organization’s specific expressions related to self-harm and violence.

This customization empowers you to tailor detection to the unique language used by your students, potentially including slang, abbreviations, or the latest terminology from social media. By identifying concerning behaviors early on, BetterCloud allows for swift intervention and support for students in need.

Institutional reputation protection

Schools dread being in the news for accidental data leaks or student actions that could hurt their reputation. BetterCloud helps prevent these issues by finding potential privacy violations and stopping any bad publicity that might come from them.

With BetterCloud, IT staff have granular control over what users can do, like who they can share files with. For instance, if a student shares a file with the public that has something inappropriate in it, BetterCloud can automatically make it private again and let both the student and the school administration know about what happened.