Since starting the Digital Leaders training, I feel inspired, re-invigorated and my passion for ICT has returned. I am excited by the new tools I want to try out in my lessons, the cool projects I want to develop and the ways in which I want to make the school environment interactive and fun.
My enthusiasm has taken a real swiftie to the nethers this week. I start my lessons with the usual teachery stuff, starter activities (well, doing a uniform check and taking the register is a starter activity, of sorts), recaps of last lesson, lesson objectives for the current lesson. Then comes the sinking feeling as I say the words "Right, if you could login to the PCs please!". Some pupils put their hands up straight away, without any thought as to what it could be; some will make a token poke at their keyboards before uttering the dreaded words, others will make a genuine effort to remember before admitting defeat. But, all paths eventually lead to ..."Sir... I've forgotten my password". And so continues the Sisyphean adventure.
Each and every lesson at least fifteen percent of learners have login issues because of forgotten passwords. Bear in mind, these are passwords with no real length or format policy enforced on them.
Don't get me started on the problems I have with Hwb+ which enforces an appropriately strict password policy. The percentage of pupils with password-related Hwb+ access issues rises to at least 40% on average. in my school, Hwb+ access is clunky, at best, and each password change can take up to a minute. Worst of all, password changes are not necessarily a one-off issue. Repeat offenders present themselves, week after week after week. For all the talk in recent months of teaching time being lost due to low-level misbehaviour (here), the amount of time my pupils lose due to an inability to remember an 8 character password of their own choosing, is equally dispiriting.
My predecessor in my previous school had a policy of charging pupils £1 per password change, which I was horrified by and quickly ditched; even I am thinking of a return to this draconian punishment (or should that be entrepreneurial endeavour?).
So, what's the answer? As a solution of sorts, I'm recommending to older pupils they store their passwords in a password vault on their smartphones. But, since these often require password protection, the irony is delicious. So, this is a plea. How do you get pupils to remember, week on week, an eight character (including one capital and one upper-case letter) password?
Lessons perhaps in constructing passwords using memorable information, or the use of the paddle above. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI don't think 8 character passwords help. Many online sites do limit the password length to 8 characters, which means that choice is limited. With a longer password, it's easier to pick memorable information to include in it. Making sure it's not too obvious, of course...
It seems to me that they've never had to remember their passwords before. I had an interesting discussion on twitter last night with a fellow head of ICT at a nearby school, and he said that he maybe changes 2 passwords per week!
ReplyDeleteYou're right though, I need to spend time with the pupils developing strategies to help them choose more memorable passwords...
Hi Al, one tactic is to get them to remember a line from a favourite song, and to use the first letter from each word of the line - they are less likely to forget this. I explain it better here: http://quib.ly/qu/how-can-i-create-a-complex-password-that-my-13-year-old-can-easily-remember#a-5315
ReplyDeletethanks for the advice!
ReplyDelete