May 7, 2026 • 55 mins
Episode 263 covers the unfolding Instructure/Canvas breach by the threat group ShinyHunters. Josh, Chris, and Mark discuss the timeline, the potential scope of compromised data, and immediate steps schools should take.
The episode also examines a new bill aimed at restricting AI companion chatbots for minors and debates age verification and safety concerns. Finally, the guys review a National Bureau of Economic Research study on lockable cell phone pouches, weighing the limited academic impacts found after one year against observed cultural benefits in schools.
Finally, Chris interviews Dave Barclay, Director of Product with Deledao!
https://www.k12dive.com/news/proposal-to-ban-ai-companions-for-minors-advances-in-senate/819239/
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Disclaimer: The views and work done by Josh, Chris, and Mark are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions or positions of sponsors or any respective employers or organizations associated with the guys. K12 Tech Talk itself does not endorse or validate the ideas, views, or statements expressed by Josh, Chris, and Mark's individual views and opinions are not representative of K12 Tech Talk. Furthermore, any references or mention of products, services, organizations, or individuals on K12 Tech Talk should not be considered as endorsements related to any employer or organization associated with the guys.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
On this week's episode of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast, we discuss the recent breach of Instructure's
(00:06):
Canvas and the impacts on almost 9,000 K-12 districts and colleges across the country.
We also investigate a new report on the positive and negative impacts of cell phone pouches
in schools.
Thanks for listening.
Live from the NTP studios, this is the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
This is episode 263.
(00:28):
We've got the alcohol flowing tonight, fellas.
My name is Josh.
Here in mid-Missouri, tech director of a mid-sized school district down the street from me, not
drinking alcohol, but probably a Mountain Dew.
Fresca.
That can looks awfully incriminating.
It's a Fresca.
(00:49):
Is Chris.
Hello, Chris.
And over on the East Coast, he and I are the ones drinking.
Hello, Mark.
Hello.
So, we talked about it last week.
Let's just jump right into this.
Mark, this afternoon, I had left work.
I get a text message from a friend of mine whose kid goes to the big university here
(01:10):
in Missouri and says, just sends me a picture, and it's a picture of a Shiny Hunter's ransom
note, it looks like.
And he works for a major company in St. Louis, and I'm like, oh, man, did something happen
to your company?
He's like, no, this is my daughter at college.
We signed into Canvas, and this is all she sees.
It's all she can do.
(01:32):
So that was at about, I guess, 315 or so.
So I call you, Mark, and you hadn't heard of it yet.
You jump on Twitter, and you said the world was on fire, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So at this point, we're recording this on May 7th in the evening.
So this is a very fluid situation.
(01:54):
We have little information as to what's going on other than kind of the high-level summary
that we've seen in the last week.
But right now, all of the colleges across the country are freaking out because Canvas
is down and has been replaced with a ransom message from Shiny Hunters.
And it's a scary message.
Yeah.
(02:15):
The ransom message was up for a short amount of time.
By the time I got home at 4 o'clock, because I had to go buy oranges for my birds that
I'm trying to attract some Orioles, and I did not know that they are attracted to freshly
sliced oranges hanging from bird feeders.
So I was on a side quest this afternoon to go get oranges.
It's fine to laugh.
(02:35):
My wife has been laughing at me all evening.
I love it.
By the time I got home and logged into, I have a Canvas account for the college that
I'm going to teach at this fall.
And I logged in wanting to see the Shiny Hunters ransom, because who doesn't want to see that?
And it was replaced with a Canvas is under scheduled maintenance.
(02:57):
And as of last check, I will log in again here now, hopefully, if I can remember how
to do that.
Before I hopped on this evening, I checked, and it was still down for maintenance.
And while Josh is doing that, check out syscloud at syscloud.com.
They can do some backups for you, your Google Workspace, your Office 365 data.
(03:18):
If you're wanting a second copy of your stuff in case you run into some problems, syscloud
might be your answer.
Check out syscloud at syscloud.com.
Josh, what's it look like right now?
So as of 8.10 PM on the 7th, it still has the little spaceship with rockets working
or robots working on it.
It says Canvas is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance.
(03:40):
I think that's a little bit of a fib.
I don't believe this is scheduled.
Well, that is what their status page also says.
Canvas is under maintenance.
It says we're currently investigating the issue, and we have placed Canvas under maintenance
mode.
We anticipate being up soon.
We'll provide updates as soon as possible.
So should we take a step back and say, how do we actually get here, and what is going
(04:00):
on with Canvas?
Yes, please.
I will say this.
I've had a couple of times in my life, switches down, server down.
We're the tech department.
Us being down is just us like sitting and just kind of not really even talking, just
taking in the, oh, this is bad.
I wonder if that's what these techs are doing right now.
(04:20):
They're like, yeah, I don't know, boss.
We can put up this text-only maintenance screen.
Or would you say it's got a little bird or something, would you say?
Rocket ship with two robots working on it.
Like somebody worked really hard on that.
Hey, if we put the rocket ship, that gives some sign of hope.
Everybody's inspired by NASA stuff right now.
(04:41):
Anybody got a rocket logo?
Give hope.
Mark, how did we get here?
Dig us out of this.
Dig us out of this here.
Well, Instructure is never sponsoring us now.
This whole thing started about a week ago, end of April, early May.
Instructure, the parent company for Canvas, as well as Learn Platform.
They have a few other products.
Sent a message out to customers saying that they had been impacted by a cyber incident.
You know, I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
is because they are the same group that was behind the Infinite Campus Breach from a few
(05:23):
weeks ago.
Shiny Hunters does a lot of different things, but they really specialize in going after
Salesforce.
It was very clear that Shiny Hunters had a problem with salesforce.
Shiny Hunters had gone after Instructure's Salesforce instance, and we really haven't
heard too much from Instructure since then.
I know a lot of districts, as of today, I was just talking with somebody and they're
asking, have you heard anything new?
And really, I think a lot of districts and college campuses are just kind of in that
(05:44):
wait and see moment.
However, in the last couple of days, Shiny Hunters did post on their website a public
ransom.
They actually posted this the day after Instructure had notified customers, and they had said
that they had had in their possession were 275 million users, encompassing 9,000 educational
(06:05):
institutions, colleges, school districts, K-12 school districts.
This includes Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley, all the big ones.
All the major campuses are using Canvas.
While it's not as big within K-12, it is pretty much the number one LMS or learning management
(06:26):
system outside of Google Classroom.
So, what do we know in terms of what data was stolen?
We really don't have that level of information right now.
Shiny Hunters has said names, email addresses, in some cases, student ID numbers.
The really scary part, though, is that they're claiming that they have billions of private
messages, assuming messages-
I'm sorry, did you say billions?
(06:48):
Billions of private messages, approximately 3.7, 3.8 terabytes of data have been stolen,
and those are messages likely between students and teachers, teachers and teachers, students
and students, and you're probably not going to see super confidential information on there,
but students talking about their grades, maybe some private messages to teachers, things
(07:12):
like that.
Now, Instructure has said that there is no evidence that password, social security numbers,
dates of birth, financial information was compromised.
It's very unlikely that information would be in Canvas, but knowing that you have Salesforce
behind the scenes, we don't quite know how they're using Salesforce.
There is still quite a lot to know.
Then, as Josh described, this afternoon, this is Thursday afternoon, when we thought that
(07:39):
this incident was kind of settled because Canvas has been up for the last week, and
we're just kind of waiting on more information, all of a sudden, college students across the
country and high school students and K-12 students logged in and saw a ransom message
from Shiny Hunters in their Canvas installation, which means that this breach, based on the
(08:00):
data that was stolen, as well as this message, has moved from Salesforce, presumably, into
Canvas itself.
So I think we're pretty clear that the Shiny Hunters attackers have gone through Salesforce
as well as Canvas.
The fact that a week later, we're seeing a ransom note posted on the public login page
(08:21):
is scary to say the least.
It just means that the company is aware that they had been breached and that Shiny Hunters
persisted for at least a week after the public announcement.
To be clear, the way I understood this manifesting was, this was post-login.
(08:42):
My friend's daughter logged into Canvas, and they were presented with this ransom note.
They couldn't get around it, beyond it, click through it, open up study materials for finals
that are this week.
All they could see, all they could do was the ransom note.
(09:03):
So Mark, when you say that move or that shift from Salesforce data, which, I mean, yes,
it's important because, hello, infinite campus issue.
You pivot from Salesforce data to actually taking over the system.
Let's call it what it is.
(09:23):
This is a ransom, right?
You're paying our ransom, you're paying our fee, or you don't get your system back.
What did they have to do?
It's now in maintenance mode.
They took it down.
That is a pivot.
That is a huge pivot.
Yeah, this is scary.
And we'll also include Shiny Hunters has posted a list of impacted school districts.
(09:46):
I will say that this is a massive list of school districts and college campuses.
You should really take this with a grain of salt.
My former district is also listed in there, and we did not use Canvas.
And so that school district being listed on here does not necessarily mean that all of
your students' data was impacted, doesn't even mean that some of your students' data.
(10:08):
It just means that Shiny Hunters has posted a list of districts, and there may be some
data from your district listed in this.
It very well could be as simple as the directory level information, as we learned from the
Infinite Campus Fund.
It could be something more, especially if you're a district that uses this.
(10:29):
So we'll post a link to that public list of districts and colleges and universities.
The other thing, I had a district reach out to me and kind of say, hey, I'm not seeing
our district on this list, but we do use Canvas as our LMS.
What do you think?
Yeah, right.
Like, I said, man, if I were in your shoes, I would operate under the assumption that
(10:55):
we're on the list, whether or not we're displayed on the public list and what they're showing.
To me, you have to operate like you are, and that means contacting your insurance company.
I was going to say, what do you do?
Well, Missouri sent out an email to school districts this morning, and more or less flat
said, if you use Canvas, you need to contact your insurance company, period, end of sentence,
(11:18):
start a claim.
So I think that's the advice here.
If you're a Canvas customer, err on the side of caution, start a claim, get your notification
letter ready to parents.
The other interesting piece here is, yes, higher ed, this is one of the big providers
(11:40):
for higher ed.
Chris, your district and my district all have dual credit students.
If those kids are going to college or dual credit through a college that uses Canvas,
I've been told that that breach notification lies with the university or the college still,
(12:02):
not necessarily the school district.
But we all know that perception, you know, Susie or Johnny goes home today and says,
hey, I couldn't take my class this afternoon, my, you know, whatever university class because
of this note, parent, the perception there is the K-12 school district is responsible
(12:24):
because it's through the K-12, they're not drawing that connection to the university.
So I called my RPR guy and superintendent and high school principal this afternoon on
my way home and said, hey, this story that I told you about last week just got exponentially
worse, still doesn't necessarily impact us, but you need to have talking points ready
(12:45):
because the likelihood of us getting a call from a parent just increased a lot.
Sure.
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(13:06):
They can help you with all of your school districts networks.
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But second thing, the timing of this, again, it's May 7th when we're recording this.
It's finals time.
Yeah.
It's end of year time.
So if all these colleges now, even like our dual credit that we're talking about, can't
finish things out right now, that's which schools and colleges should have a plan for
(13:30):
this.
What do you do when your LMS is down?
I guess those are going to play out the worst time of year for some colleges.
Chris, how many years ago was it we had that bad ice storm right around Christmas break?
Yeah.
And we canceled finals or we canceled school during finals and I guess we pushed finals
(13:53):
to when they came back after the first of the year and we did a hold harmless type setting
where if they took the final and it knocked their grade down, we didn't count the final.
Like it wouldn't, their grade was their grade, but if it could only help their grade.
What the heck do you do in a university level at this case?
(14:15):
The timing of this has made me think, I think I talked about it last episode about my district.
We've been working on our incident response plan and our disaster recovery plan and we
finally spent some time with some business continuity stuff and I mean, this is in there.
These are the scenarios to play out.
So even though we're unpacking something happened at college, I mean, we can play, I mean, what
(14:35):
would happen if Google classroom was going to be down for a while?
What would happen if your system was going to be down for a while?
What's the plan?
And a funny little antidote to that, I think.
Anecdote.
Anecdote.
An antidote.
We were just going through our, I'm still saying it wrong.
It's the Fresca kicking in.
We were going through our business continuity plan and talking about what if our financial
(15:01):
system is down when it's payroll?
Yeah.
And our administration thought that our financial system was cloud-based and we wouldn't be
impacted by anything local and I was like, no, it's just, it's sitting in, that system
is just sitting in our office and we were shedding that light.
(15:21):
Like we are literally hosed and you know, we have backups and we walk through that thing,
but that talk about that disconnect where particular people don't know how those dominoes
are going to fall if the bad thing is happening.
I mean, this is another example of that.
Say it properly again.
Anecdote.
(15:41):
Thank you.
You said antidote like you got bit by a venomous snake.
Antidote.
No.
No.
I said it wrong on purpose that time at least.
I figured.
Uh, if you ever get bit by a venomous snake, just don't go into the hospital asking for
an anecdote.
Quick, give me the antidote.
You actually just said it right there.
(16:03):
You did too.
You're right.
You're correct.
Use case there.
Man.
Yesterday I was public speaking and I kept stuttering with my T's and I did the whole
today and I was like just melting.
So thanks for making fun of my speech impediments and stuff.
I took speech in fifth grade.
I've always struggled with stuff.
Thanks guys.
Well, maybe instead of speech, you should have paid attention in vocabulary class.
(16:28):
Yeah.
By a thesaurus.
Thesaurus?
Anyways, I mean, when you think about it, like at the, at the K-12 level, canvas being
down means like, okay, I'll turn in my homework tomorrow or like I'll see you tomorrow kind
of thing.
Whereas at the college campus level, a lot of this is being done asynchronously and so
(16:51):
you don't have that ability.
And so college professors like their emails might be overwhelmed.
Like you're sending out messages that way.
They're receiving papers for, you know, directly for their email address.
This is a much, much bigger deal at the college level than it is at the high school level.
We, we don't know the data that was stolen.
So we, you know, we could start to see, uh, some, some worse stories coming out of both
(17:14):
K-12 and higher ed.
But you know, people say I'm a pessimist.
I don't, I don't know if I agree with it, but you have to, it says that everybody give
us their names, pretty much everybody.
You have to admit if they've had, if they have the ability to take down your login page
(17:38):
or your post login page to only show a ransom note, you're pretty hosed.
You have to assume that the scope and the breadth of the data that they have is large,
deep and wide.
Wouldn't you agree?
Yeah.
I mean, I think the scariest part of all of this is that this comes one week after the
(18:02):
public disclosure of this entire thing.
So it's not like we all woke up one day and all of a sudden there was a ransom note.
It's well known about this for a week.
Instructure has known about this for a week.
They probably been pouring through their systems and all of a sudden this whole thing pops
up today.
How did you miss this?
(18:22):
Well, this is a huge lesson in recovery.
I think it's worth reading the note because Mark, you bring up an interesting point.
So it, you know, shiny hunters rooting your system since 2019.
This is an interesting statement to me, if true, which you have to assume it is.
(18:45):
Shiny hunters has breached Instructure, parentheses, again, instead of contacting us to resolve
a settlement, they ignored us and did some, quote, security patches.
If any of the schools in the affected list are interested in preventing the release of
their data, please consult with a cyber advisory firm and contact us privately at blank to
(19:07):
negotiate a settlement.
You'll have to the end of the day, May 12, 2026, before everything is leaked.
So that's a pretty bold claim.
It's like, yeah, they claim to fix it, but we had another way in that they didn't find
and we're here.
This is a big old, you know, what?
(19:29):
And it begs the question on, did they get in without credentials?
Like we would normally think were harvested and they got in like with an admin account
or something.
Like, did they get in?
Some other vulnerability, you know, like some unpatched vulnerability or, you know, God
only knows.
It doesn't make you feel very good.
Well, at this point, there's more that we don't know than more than we do.
(19:50):
So we'll probably be talking about this for the next couple of weeks, if not even sooner,
as we start to learn more, hopefully from Instructure, because all we have right now
is just a maintenance note from the company and then there are one or two messages from
last week.
So to be determined.
And Chris has emailed them, right, Chris?
Yeah.
Do you think they'll come in like in the midst of this or I don't know.
(20:15):
I couldn't imagine, you know, being in their shoes, going through this, you know, Shiny
Hunters.
Okay.
Was it Salesforce stuff?
Okay.
We got it patched, boss.
And then a week later, this happens.
Yeah.
The patch guy's feeling some pressure right now.
Well, I was texting another friend earlier this evening and we were talking, I'm like,
(20:40):
you wouldn't have to fire me at that point.
I quit.
You will never see me again.
I'm going to go take up a living, cutting grass at a golf course or something.
Two things.
One's a sponsor.
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(21:04):
asset inventory, barcode check-in and check-out, track device repairs and more.
They have a new integrated help desk, K-12 ticketing option as well.
Second thing.
Josh, how quick do you think you could pack up your stuff in your office?
Like if you were like, I'm out.
20 minutes.
Not even.
Not even.
(21:24):
You're like, ready.
I don't, not many things there hold value to me.
So I'd be fine just leaving.
Wow.
That was a brutal statement.
I mean, there's like a picture of my family.
There's a 3D printed Groot.
I can only see Chris's background when he's at work and I can already tell he's got at
(21:51):
least three hours.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Please give me some time, boss.
Yeah.
His, his lightsaber is there.
I don't have anything like that there.
No, that's, it's work, not home.
All right.
Shall we move on?
Sure.
What else?
We shall.
But first, PowerGistics.
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(22:15):
They are designed for kids that have great use.
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Hopefully help you with less breaks, that kind of thing, because they're so easy to
use.
So check out PowerGistics.
I really hope.
It's that kind of episode.
Just people aren't keeping count.
What else you got, Mark?
(22:36):
I mean, I got to keep talking or Chris is going to do another sponsor thing in a second.
So let's just keep it moving here.
All right.
Federal level.
Federal level.
Your senator, actually, in Missouri, Josh Hawley, is, is.
Yeah.
Yours, Josh.
Yours.
I haven't even said anything yet.
Get us out of here.
No.
No, no, no, no.
I think you can get behind this one.
(22:59):
This is called the GARD Act, the Guidelines for User Age Verification and Responsible
Dialogue.
This is a federal bill aimed at banning AI companion chatbots for minors.
I am on board with this one with a couple of kind of caveats here, though, but this
would prohibit AI companions from interacting with children and teens under the age of 18.
(23:19):
This is specifically going after things like character AI, the tools where kids can make
a friend and talk about it.
So not necessarily banning AI, but more of the companions, the social medical advice
type things.
Companies could face a fine of up to $100,000 per offense if AI engages in sexually explicit
(23:39):
content or promotes violence with minors.
Now here's where I get a little bit concerned about these bills.
I'm on board with putting restrictions for children and making sure that these things
are safe before I put them in their hands, either at home or at school.
However, in order for companies to know that it's dealing with a child-
You have to verify it.
You have to verify it.
(23:59):
So this is where I always get nervous and I'm kind of conflicted on these bills, is
that it does require all users to undergo age verification to interact with AI chatbots.
So I think the devil is in the details on this one.
If we're talking about AI in general, you know, I think that should, you know, you shouldn't
really have to put in a driver's license for those kinds of things.
(24:21):
But if you're signing up for a specific site like character AI, I feel like it's a little
bit different.
But still, I don't like the idea of websites collecting driver's licenses in other age
documentation.
So that's where I get a little bit nervous about this one.
I will say though, that Holly has also clarified that this would not impact schools for legitimate
(24:45):
educational or tutoring purposes.
So thoughts on any of that bill?
I agree with you completely.
I'm not uploading my driver's license anywhere because it'll end up going to Planeteer or
Palantir, however you pronounce it.
Agree.
This week, so our AI committee I've talked about several times over the course of time.
(25:07):
This has been our week that we're meeting with our high schoolers and our middle schoolers,
librarian going through this ethics lesson with all middle school and high school kids
and unpacking what our AI policy and regulation is, but in kid terms.
I got to be in the library for one of those lessons and hear her talk about asking the
(25:32):
kids questions about their AI usage at home.
And if they find themselves asking AI, these questions that you would typically ask another
person, but you can ask an AI bot and it gives up like this relational answer.
And the kids were surprisingly open in that session that I was in that, yeah, they're
(25:52):
doing that.
And again, so there's a legit concern there because what the AI is giving back is not
that human connection of good advice or whatever.
Random side quest note on that, super interesting in all these classes, the kids overwhelmingly
have been, they are okay with them using AI for things, but they express hesitation
(26:14):
that teachers are creating and using AI like on them.
And then we have our teachers that want to use AI, don't want the kids to use it.
Super interesting conversations this week as we've done that too.
I mean, I guess you could say I'm kind of the same way when it comes to AI tutoring.
I feel like I could go to an AI chat bot and ask it for advice and take it, obviously
(26:38):
with a grain of salt.
I'm nervous about other people using them.
I'm nervous about, especially minors using them for mental health or counseling because
these things are very sycophantic.
It's going to tell the student or the child exactly what it wants to hear.
At least I feel like I could distinguish between what is right or what's wrong and have a more,
(26:59):
I guess you could say honest conversation, but I do worry about what happens when kids
start using these things for counseling, for medical advice, for social interactions.
You know what I hate?
A lot.
AI generated TV commercials.
They're horrible.
I agree.
I think the tutoring thing, I think it's that same thing.
(27:21):
I think this is what the problem is.
If you sit a kid down to interact with a computer to just do tutoring, the natural
thing is that that kid is going to start asking more of those counselor questions once that
tutoring thing is established.
That's that hard line.
We can even go back, and I know there's good and bad tutors, but when a kid has a tutor,
(27:45):
it's usually because they're looking for someone that can do that special connection with the
kid that can make them think a different way.
I have a hard time thinking that the AI bot is going to unlock that as easy as the human
tutor can.
Yeah, sure, you can prove me wrong in a year, whatever this stuff advances, but it's just
this easy thing.
(28:05):
Like you said, Mark, with tutoring, your natural thing is to ask this bot more questions about
things beyond just what you're trying to learn about.
Throwback to last week's episode with that quizzing tool throwing a generative AI and
chat AI into their tool, that's where the concern comes with here.
(28:26):
I mean, yes, there's a cheating concern as well, but there is also a who's really watching
what's taking place on a tool that nobody knew that was coming.
That's a huge, huge issue.
I guess in this thing, mandatory disclosure, chat bots must clearly disclose to all users
that they are not human.
So what?
(28:47):
That's just a little sentence like, yeah, that ain't going to hit.
What's that going to do?
Yeah.
So what?
Yeah.
All right.
Well, let's move on before Chris does another advertisement here.
The National Bureau of Economic Research has published a paper called The Effects of School
Phone Bans, National Evidence for Lockable Pouches.
This is going to be really, this is going to make me mad and go on a rant.
(29:09):
I already know what you're going to say.
Hold on, because I think so, because a lot of people have quoted parts of this on social
media, on LinkedIn and things like that.
Now I'm going to go through the statistics and then I'm going to kind of caveat some
of these statistics with a little bit of context here.
So the National Bureau of Economic Research has looked at things like Yonder and said,
(29:34):
what happened in the year or two after schools banned this?
Now that's the first thing is that this is only looking at one or two years, very, very
statistically small percentage of data that you're looking at from a longitudinal perspective.
They looked at social emotional, they looked at academic and you did find some modest positive
(29:57):
gains in academic achievement at the high school level, although very, very statistically
insignificant, less than a percentile point increase.
So it's almost hard to pinpoint the pouches as being the source of that 1% point increase.
Middle schools saw negative effects on achievement, again, very, very small, but they did see
(30:21):
after cell phones were banned with these lockable pouches that middle school achievement, academic
achievement slightly dipped.
They believe that this was the result of the disciplinary incidents increasing.
So overall, about 16% of disciplinary incidents increased, which is one of the connections
(30:42):
of why maybe academics slightly dipped at the middle school level is because students
were a little more dysregulated with their cell phones and they were finding other ways
to distract.
So I will say this, there was more positive output or more positive outcomes for cell
phone bans than negative.
It's just a very interesting look to see statistically does a cell phone ban impact academic achievement
(31:08):
or is it more of a cultural move than anything?
I think to make assertions and try and draw a statistic, statistical significance of not
even a year or a year of something is stupid.
(31:30):
Anybody that took statistics 101 should know that you need more than one year's worth of
data after making a change like that to be able to draw a statistic corollary.
That's to me, that's completely unreasonable.
This was a pretty holistic look at schools with these bans and schools without it, and
(31:53):
so that's where they're comparing more the schools with and without than it is more longitudinal,
but I agree.
I think it is going to take a much longer time period than one year to see this.
I also think too that kids having cell phones at home also brings in other issues into schools.
You have students who are interacting on social media, the anxiety, the social interactions
(32:17):
that you might have at home get carried into the classroom, so you're right.
It's a very statistically insignificant number, but I think overall teachers, principals,
and students are all seeing this as a positive move, so whether or not the data shows it
as a negative or positive consequence, I'm on board with these kinds of moves.
(32:41):
Yeah, not just a Missouri thing or a Midwest thing.
We've seen people talk about it on K-12 Tech Pro and K-12 Sys Admin.
Everyone likes the cell phone ban stuff.
The cafeteria sounds different.
The classrooms look different.
Teachers like it.
Principals like it.
There are significantly more library books being checked out.
(33:03):
So you're kind of like- Significantly more.
You're in the trenches of that, seeing the goodness, so you're like, okay, you gave me
a report after a year, get that trash out of here.
We're seeing it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't think I see too many schools and districts and states saying, we're going to ban cell
phones because we think it's going to lead to immediate academic achievement or positive
(33:29):
behavior.
I do think it's much more of a cultural move than anything, and culture eats strategy for
breakfast.
If you can help a culture where cell phones are not needed or necessary, then you can
start to build a much more focused and strategic academic culture.
So again, I'm in favor of cell phone bans.
I always have been, but hopefully the data will show it over time.
(33:53):
No, we're going to increase test scores by screen time bans.
This is reminding me too of how I always struggle with a diet, because if I don't lose weight
quickly after a week, I'm like, this diet's stupid.
That's the same vibe of this.
What do you mean things aren't better after a couple of days?
(34:15):
Bring the phones back.
I'd go back to my nighttime eating.
I have to admit, I saw that new Fitbit today, I was like, oh, that's it?
The new Fitbit's what's going to get, no, it's not going to get me out of shape.
I will, I'll eat, you know, healthy breakfast, lunch, and then get on the scale and nothing
has changed.
So then I'll binge eat like five snacks before bed, and then I try again the next day and
(34:43):
repeat.
All right.
Well, that's all I've got for the news.
Chris, do you want to hit your last 18 sponsors and then pivot to the interview?
I do, and then we get an interview.
So yeah, thanks for listening.
We love that you guys listen and thanks to our sponsors that make this episode and the
events that we do possible.
And speaking of events, we do want to give a quick rundown of what our calendar is looking
(35:06):
like, but that's thanks to our sponsors.
So let me get through a couple of them.
You can check out Extreme Networks.
You can email our friend, Dominic Mayer at dmayeratextremenetworks.com.
I'm doing some switch upgrades this summer.
You should too.
Lightspeed Systems, proud sponsor of this podcast, they have a screen time product that
can help you with tracking that usage.
(35:27):
We're going to email Amy with Lightspeed in a couple of weeks to discuss screen time because
Lightspeed has an opinion about screen time that I think you're going to find interesting.
Manage Methods, managemethods.com.
They can look at your Google and Microsoft environments and keep you safe as they do
their scanning.
And Fortinet, email fortinetpodcast at fortinet.com.
(35:48):
Get your Forti on, your FortiGate, FortiAnalyzer, and more.
Next week, KTOL Tech Pro, Nathan's going to be at the Actum Conference in Maine, May 11th.
If you're in Maine, come and check out Nathan there.
June 16th to the 17th, Rooks over at KTOL Tech Pro will be at the Summit LTC Conference
in Illinois.
And then July 6th to the 10th, we're going to be at Gamus in Savannah, Georgia, beautiful
(36:12):
Savannah, Georgia.
The three of us will be at that podcast table.
And then July 19th to the 21st, we will be at Midwest Tech Talk here in Missouri.
Check out midwesttechtalk.com.
Come and hang out with us there.
But last but not least, I got to hang out with Delladeo.
This is going to be an interview with them.
Learn about what Delladeo has to offer your school.
(36:34):
Thanks for listening.
All right, I am hanging out with Dave Barclay, the Director of Product with Delladeo.
Dave, how's it going?
It's going great, Chris.
Thanks for having us.
Dave, I love when you jumped on this thing with me, the first question you asked me,
and we might as well unpack it on the air, was about ribs.
So you're a rib guy.
Absolutely.
(36:55):
I am.
I am.
I had a smoker a friend had given us to us, one of those little pellet ones.
And for Father's Day one year, she got me a real deal kind of, you know, charcoal smoker.
And I've been playing around with that now.
We're upstate New York and far enough upstate that our pizza is okay.
But you know, I'm experimenting with these ribs here.
(37:18):
So I understand I'm in the presence of, you know, like real ribs in Missouri.
So I will.
Yeah.
So I was telling you my ribs, I will say my ribs are good, but my father's ribs are better
than mine.
I love that my dad likes my ribs.
That makes me feel like I've grown up or whatever, but I do the fake stuff too.
I do a pellet grill.
(37:39):
It's probably better than yours if we're being real.
I'm sure it is.
It's whatever.
Okay.
Enough about the ribs.
I guess we should talk about Delladeo.
I guess, tell me a little bit about yourself, but then, you know, segue that straight into
if I'm listening and I have no idea what Delladeo is, what you guys do, would you unpack that
(37:59):
for me?
Absolutely.
So personally for me, I started off as a classroom teacher, well, like 27 years ago, kind of
saw the break between ed tech and like where ed tech was right within that one computer
classroom.
And when I was asked to do a presentation for the school board saying why I needed to
(38:21):
have a classroom webpage and my grades online, I decided that I'd probably go into this ed
tech piece.
So from there, I've been a IT consultant.
I worked in the Middle East and Abu Dhabi colleges and consulting there before kind
of getting into the private sector here with Delladeo into director product.
(38:43):
So, you know, kind of that ed tech, IT director piece, and I'm personally, I've got two high
school boys.
I'm a varsity football and varsity wrestling coach and a PTA president.
So it's really interesting how my personal life and professional life kind of mix all
together.
And, you know, as we well know, your middle school boys are your worst abusers on the
(39:05):
content filter and having direct access to them is a good focus group to deal with, you
know, daily.
I have three kids.
One has graduated.
She's in college.
I have a senior and then a fourth grader.
My senior was just advising my fourth grader to not tell dad about the blocked websites
and the unblocked games because that's snitching.
(39:29):
She still thinks I'm like awesome that, you know, I get the blocked websites and stuff.
So she's still telling me things.
But he gave that great advice to not let dad know the tech problems of the school.
So Chris, just a little bit of insight for you.
They will sell anybody out for an ice cream Snickers bar.
And it's like, you know, when I was coaching middle school wrestling, you know, I walked
(39:52):
into sports study hall and say, hey, anybody that can get around the filter, show me and
I'll give you an ice cream Snickers bar and they will sell everybody out that they know.
And it's great.
So just put that one aside.
Well, we do a special email address because bug bounty at our school district.
And we encourage our high school, middle school kids, if they can figure out a bug, you know,
(40:15):
a Chromebook issue, whatever, whatever, that's the setting that we should change.
Or we'll take a website that, you know, we're not blocking that we should.
And then I'll pass that kid like a bag of candy and try to try to keep it on the down
low.
But OK, so I know the difference, actually.
Will you unpack the difference of Deladayo versus the others that are out there?
(40:37):
Sure.
So Deladayo, it's a K-12 content filtering classroom management and student safety tool.
What makes us different is we're utilizing real time AI to analyze web activity as it
happens.
So this component's been a real game changer for us because it allows districts to do a
better job protecting students, reducing distractions, but in an ever changing dynamic
(41:02):
online environment.
And now kind of that we've we've done a great job on that side.
We can focus on things like getting the tech out of the way.
We'll talk about that.
But that's that's kind of been our theme as a company, right?
We're doing a great job keeping students safe.
The AI is doing a great job of reducing and eliminating distractions.
(41:22):
But we want to get that tech out of the way to reduce overblocking.
And so teachers can get that content necessary to run their lessons and run their school
day.
Yeah, I have a I guess I'd say a colleague that was I guess he's probably still in the
midst of a demo with with with you guys, and he was shocked in a good way at what was being
(41:45):
blocked and was being blocked because it wasn't an improvement based upon, you know,
the traditional thing that we think about a whitelist, a blacklist, you know, what we
allow, what what what we don't just basing it upon categories that are always constantly
changing.
I guess, would you unpack that a little bit?
So AI is doing its thing with the content filter.
(42:06):
So it's just making decisions based upon what it's seeing in real time.
Yeah, so exactly.
So, you know, for instance, you check a category that you want blocked.
Let's say gambling.
And you know, it's going to it can see it can see the text, it can see images, it can
even evaluate that video.
So now it blurs the video in real time, it sees the images that can blur or block the
(42:29):
images in real time.
And depending on, you know, kind of the mix of these things that will make the determination
is this blur?
Or do we just block the page outright?
Do we block the text and kind of block the text out and redact it?
Or do we just say, you know what, this is out of bounds, and it goes beyond that.
So it with the nature of the web, where, you know, you can spin up a website in 20 minutes,
(42:54):
and kids are now more than adept at doing this.
We don't have to worry about some somebody kind of cataloging these websites, it really
is doing a great job of adapting to this dynamic environment.
When you mentioned student safety, what is Della Dale doing in regards to student safety?
(43:15):
That's a newer, newer thing, maybe?
It is.
And this is, this is really what started off as content filtering years ago, then schools
started to say, hey, well, we want classroom management.
And now you've got classroom management bundled with content filtering.
And then this wellness piece is kind of been the latest thing that's come out in the last
(43:36):
few years, where all right, we want our content filter to keep kids safe while they're browsing.
But we also want the content filter, there's an expectation of this wellness component.
So if a child is, you know, like doing a search for, say, suicide online, you know, like how
to kill myself, that needs to report back on that.
Or if the student is writing something concerning, say, in a Google Doc, we can report back on
(44:01):
that.
The district says, hey, I want to check self-harm.
And then based upon that, now it's directing the AI on what to look for.
So it's always in the district's control.
And we're able to respect that culture and climate that, you know, in Missouri, it's
different than it is in California or Massachusetts or wherever they happen to be.
(44:24):
And so we're able to address those cultural expectations, and then report accordingly.
Okay.
Yes, tell me a little bit further.
So when something is flagged, what happens?
Who finds that out?
So it really depends on your internal structure, right?
(44:44):
So we've got schools that are 100 students, we've got schools that are 20, 30,000 students.
And so those can be routed to however you wish.
So we've got different types of alerts that would go through.
You and your IT staff may want to be alerted on certain specific things.
But you've got guidance counselors, wellness counselors, even police in some cases there
(45:07):
where they've got that kind of school resource officer in that close community.
And the district then decides how you want this routed and who's to be notified and in
what order and based upon what time.
And does that come via email?
Email, text.
Again, it's up to that district to determine what is the best delivery method for those
(45:29):
pieces there.
Okay, cool.
Hey, let me give you, I think, a little bit of a hot seat one.
So some debate sometimes about student privacy, whether or not a school or a tech should be
having that whole insight to what the kid is doing, but then also student safety, protecting
the student.
Deladato's approach to that, where does that fit in there with those insights?
(45:53):
Yeah, so first and foremost, we adhere to every local, federal, and state guideline
as it applies to student data privacy, right?
So we don't use any of this data for anything that would be outside of those restrictions
right there.
We do, as I mentioned before, the district can then decide what they want to report on.
(46:19):
And we're fairly specific.
We've been doing this for a while now, and we know the hot button issues that a district
wants reported on.
So we'll use self-harm, for instance.
The district says they want alerts on self-harm, they want to block self-harm web searches
and content coming on the web, and then they can determine how those alerts are surfaced
(46:44):
and who then gets those alerts, for sure.
But there is some level of expectation that's saying, hey, as your network administrator,
well, your super administrator, you've got control and visibility into lots of content,
email for the district.
So there's an expectation that there comes a certain point where your IT staff will need
(47:08):
to be able to manage these pieces here, which is no different than Google, for instance,
with Gmail.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, let me pick your brain on this one.
This isn't so hot seat, though, I don't think.
If I'm a tech and I'm looking at my content filter, and I'm going to make a decision,
typically, I'm trying to forecast the next two, three, four, five years, what are things
(47:30):
I should be looking at in a content filter today?
But I think even, can you tell me what you think I should be looking at with a three-year
plan in mind?
Sure.
So first, let's say what you should be looking at for today, right?
I have not spoken with an IT director that's on their first content filter, right?
(47:54):
Everybody's been around, they've been to the shows, especially if you're shopping these
things out.
You most likely have used one of the big players out there, if not all of the big players out
there over the years, right?
We started off with a homebound appliance, and then we just needed a SIPA, and then grew
in there.
So IT admins are fairly well-schooled and understand what they're up against.
(48:23):
In making the decision, you've got three components to this.
I'd say it's price, features, and fit, okay?
So price, schools are price-sensitive.
You've got a limited budget with this, you know what your price was last year.
So obviously, it needs to fit that.
And then it says, well, at this price point, am I going to sacrifice on features?
(48:47):
Am I going to sacrifice on fit?
And features could be, it could be AI, it could be reporting, it could, you know, like,
what do you need?
And there's a fair amount of parity across the big players here.
So there isn't going to be too much of a difference, right?
But it really comes into that fit.
(49:08):
What is going to fit your culture and your school and your needs?
Who's going to be growing and adapting?
And then, you know, providing those features to ensure that the fit is there.
Because sometimes, if the fit isn't there, like, let's say you really like the filter,
but not the content-managing piece.
Remember, we said, like, these are now all kind of purchased together.
(49:29):
It's that single pane of glass.
Those are the big components that they need to figure out.
And it isn't necessarily up to the IT director.
We do a lot of demos and a lot of pilots by committee.
So you've got the IT staff that's putting in, they've got to vote.
You've got the faculty, you've got, you know, a number of voices that need to be satisfied
(49:52):
to make sure that that fit is there.
That's probably, and there may be many techs that listen to this that won't like what you
just said.
But the old school way of thinking about a content filter, I think a K-12 tech has typically
just thought, that's my problem and that's my solution, and without that extra input.
I think that's a pretty wise thing you just said, because we expect more out of our content
(50:17):
filter.
We are getting to this great place where we expect, want the teacher to have the insight
to what the kid's doing.
The principal needs to be able to look at that easier.
A lot of the old school or been around for a long time content filters, you know, the
tech department is still heavily relied on to pull that stuff out of there.
So I like that you said that.
(50:37):
Set up a committee, a worthwhile committee, and let them have some input there.
And, you know, just to pull on that a little bit more, right, is that the old school content
filters, and this is back when I was doing it, nobody wanted anything to do with it.
Just block, you know, just block the SIPA stuff, and that was that.
(50:59):
But now there's so much more to it, right?
So like what we can do is we can provide students the ability to unblock, you know,
request an unblock.
All right, well, does the IT, like I've talked to IT directors, and they don't want just
that responsibility, because now if a student sees out of bounds content, well, who's the
(51:20):
superintendent going to be calling, right?
And that's so, so now that needs to be a broader decision.
So what I'd say to the IT director is, like, no, this should be my decision.
Well, it doesn't need to be anymore, because there are things that are, that can be distributed
(51:41):
out, like, you know, a lot of IT admins weren't classroom teachers.
And so why would we ask an IT admin specifically to say, well, I want you to evaluate these
websites whether it's good for education or not.
And that's where we can have a productive conversation with the larger school community
to help drive that so that when something does come up, it's been that cultural fit.
(52:03):
Yep, I like it.
All right, last question, I think.
Why if I'm a K-12 tech, why should I consider Dell Adeo above the others?
Well, as we said before, you probably looked at other filters that are out there, right?
Is, you know, how is the fit then with those filters?
Where are the frustration points then with filters?
(52:26):
You know, one thing that I've come to notice is nobody's in love with their content filter,
right?
No, I'm never leaving because there's always some pain point with that.
So as you're evaluating these filters, as you're looking for what you've got next year,
and it goes back to that price features and fit, is where is the growth going?
(52:48):
Where are your pain points and how can those be addressed moving forward?
You'll notice that everybody in the industry now is talking about some kind of AI component
to their filter, which that's a convenient term to use, but what's the meaning behind
that?
Where's the proof in that?
And so that's where it needs to be dynamic and kind of relying on lists, relying on kind
(53:12):
of the staticness of legacy filters.
That's where that becomes problematic.
So that would be my, I guess, challenge, as it were, as you phrased it, to an IT admin
evaluating filters.
Who is kind of moving in this direction?
Because as we're seeing like this anthropic mythos, that's kind of like a doomsday scenario.
(53:35):
But what does that mean for everything else?
That means that today an enterprising student can go home, can use AI with GitHub to spin
up a game site, and now he's got that, and he's going to post it on Discord, and he's
going to change the URL every day.
You don't want to block the same, you know, the URL that adds a one or a two, right?
(53:57):
That's just madness.
So who's going to be able to evolve to address that nuisance, really, on the IT admin side?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Well, Dave, nice to meet you.
Yeah.
And if you're a Cato Tech listening to this, check out delladeo, delladeo.com.
I'm sure you can get a demo.
I know that you can.
Dave, anything else?
(54:17):
Am I missing anything at all?
No, it's, you know, you all have a, it's a hard job.
It's a thankless job.
And what you're trying to do as IT admins is get a school district to go in a direction
where you're nobody's boss, right?
And that's, you really need to be evangelists for what you're doing and what you're believing.
(54:39):
So we're here to help.
We understand that.
You're talking to somebody here that's, I'm in a school bus or in a classroom, you know,
five or six days a week.
So I, I, I'm right there with you guys.
I love it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Chris.
(55:06):
The views and opinions expressed on the K-12 Tech Talk podcast are the personal opinions
of Josh, Chris, and Mark, and do not represent the views or opinions of our sponsors or other
organizations that we're affiliated with.
The material and information presented here is for general information and entertainment
purposes only.
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.
On this week's episode of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast, we discuss the recent breach of Instructure's
(00:06):
Canvas and the impacts on almost 9,000 K-12 districts and colleges across the country.
We also investigate a new report on the positive and negative impacts of cell phone pouches
in schools.
Thanks for listening.
Live from the NTP studios, this is the K-12 Tech Talk podcast.
This is episode 263.
(00:28):
We've got the alcohol flowing tonight, fellas.
My name is Josh.
Here in mid-Missouri, tech director of a mid-sized school district down the street from me, not
drinking alcohol, but probably a Mountain Dew.
Fresca.
That can looks awfully incriminating.
It's a Fresca.
(00:49):
Is Chris.
Hello, Chris.
And over on the East Coast, he and I are the ones drinking.
Hello, Mark.
Hello.
So, we talked about it last week.
Let's just jump right into this.
Mark, this afternoon, I had left work.
I get a text message from a friend of mine whose kid goes to the big university here
(01:10):
in Missouri and says, just sends me a picture, and it's a picture of a Shiny Hunter's ransom
note, it looks like.
And he works for a major company in St. Louis, and I'm like, oh, man, did something happen
to your company?
He's like, no, this is my daughter at college.
We signed into Canvas, and this is all she sees.
It's all she can do.
(01:32):
So that was at about, I guess, 315 or so.
So I call you, Mark, and you hadn't heard of it yet.
You jump on Twitter, and you said the world was on fire, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So at this point, we're recording this on May 7th in the evening.
So this is a very fluid situation.
(01:54):
We have little information as to what's going on other than kind of the high-level summary
that we've seen in the last week.
But right now, all of the colleges across the country are freaking out because Canvas
is down and has been replaced with a ransom message from Shiny Hunters.
And it's a scary message.
Yeah.
(02:15):
The ransom message was up for a short amount of time.
By the time I got home at 4 o'clock, because I had to go buy oranges for my birds that
I'm trying to attract some Orioles, and I did not know that they are attracted to freshly
sliced oranges hanging from bird feeders.
So I was on a side quest this afternoon to go get oranges.
It's fine to laugh.
(02:35):
My wife has been laughing at me all evening.
I love it.
By the time I got home and logged into, I have a Canvas account for the college that
I'm going to teach at this fall.
And I logged in wanting to see the Shiny Hunters ransom, because who doesn't want to see that?
And it was replaced with a Canvas is under scheduled maintenance.
(02:57):
And as of last check, I will log in again here now, hopefully, if I can remember how
to do that.
Before I hopped on this evening, I checked, and it was still down for maintenance.
And while Josh is doing that, check out syscloud at syscloud.com.
They can do some backups for you, your Google Workspace, your Office 365 data.
(03:18):
If you're wanting a second copy of your stuff in case you run into some problems, syscloud
might be your answer.
Check out syscloud at syscloud.com.
Josh, what's it look like right now?
So as of 8.10 PM on the 7th, it still has the little spaceship with rockets working
or robots working on it.
It says Canvas is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance.
(03:40):
I think that's a little bit of a fib.
I don't believe this is scheduled.
Well, that is what their status page also says.
Canvas is under maintenance.
It says we're currently investigating the issue, and we have placed Canvas under maintenance
mode.
We anticipate being up soon.
We'll provide updates as soon as possible.
So should we take a step back and say, how do we actually get here, and what is going
(04:00):
on with Canvas?
Yes, please.
I will say this.
I've had a couple of times in my life, switches down, server down.
We're the tech department.
Us being down is just us like sitting and just kind of not really even talking, just
taking in the, oh, this is bad.
I wonder if that's what these techs are doing right now.
(04:20):
They're like, yeah, I don't know, boss.
We can put up this text-only maintenance screen.
Or would you say it's got a little bird or something, would you say?
Rocket ship with two robots working on it.
Like somebody worked really hard on that.
Hey, if we put the rocket ship, that gives some sign of hope.
Everybody's inspired by NASA stuff right now.
(04:41):
Anybody got a rocket logo?
Give hope.
Mark, how did we get here?
Dig us out of this.
Dig us out of this here.
Well, Instructure is never sponsoring us now.
This whole thing started about a week ago, end of April, early May.
Instructure, the parent company for Canvas, as well as Learn Platform.
They have a few other products.
Sent a message out to customers saying that they had been impacted by a cyber incident.
You know, I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
I'm not going to go into the details.
is because they are the same group that was behind the Infinite Campus Breach from a few
(05:23):
weeks ago.
Shiny Hunters does a lot of different things, but they really specialize in going after
Salesforce.
It was very clear that Shiny Hunters had a problem with salesforce.
Shiny Hunters had gone after Instructure's Salesforce instance, and we really haven't
heard too much from Instructure since then.
I know a lot of districts, as of today, I was just talking with somebody and they're
asking, have you heard anything new?
And really, I think a lot of districts and college campuses are just kind of in that
(05:44):
wait and see moment.
However, in the last couple of days, Shiny Hunters did post on their website a public
ransom.
They actually posted this the day after Instructure had notified customers, and they had said
that they had had in their possession were 275 million users, encompassing 9,000 educational
(06:05):
institutions, colleges, school districts, K-12 school districts.
This includes Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley, all the big ones.
All the major campuses are using Canvas.
While it's not as big within K-12, it is pretty much the number one LMS or learning management
(06:26):
system outside of Google Classroom.
So, what do we know in terms of what data was stolen?
We really don't have that level of information right now.
Shiny Hunters has said names, email addresses, in some cases, student ID numbers.
The really scary part, though, is that they're claiming that they have billions of private
messages, assuming messages-
I'm sorry, did you say billions?
(06:48):
Billions of private messages, approximately 3.7, 3.8 terabytes of data have been stolen,
and those are messages likely between students and teachers, teachers and teachers, students
and students, and you're probably not going to see super confidential information on there,
but students talking about their grades, maybe some private messages to teachers, things
(07:12):
like that.
Now, Instructure has said that there is no evidence that password, social security numbers,
dates of birth, financial information was compromised.
It's very unlikely that information would be in Canvas, but knowing that you have Salesforce
behind the scenes, we don't quite know how they're using Salesforce.
There is still quite a lot to know.
Then, as Josh described, this afternoon, this is Thursday afternoon, when we thought that
(07:39):
this incident was kind of settled because Canvas has been up for the last week, and
we're just kind of waiting on more information, all of a sudden, college students across the
country and high school students and K-12 students logged in and saw a ransom message
from Shiny Hunters in their Canvas installation, which means that this breach, based on the
(08:00):
data that was stolen, as well as this message, has moved from Salesforce, presumably, into
Canvas itself.
So I think we're pretty clear that the Shiny Hunters attackers have gone through Salesforce
as well as Canvas.
The fact that a week later, we're seeing a ransom note posted on the public login page
(08:21):
is scary to say the least.
It just means that the company is aware that they had been breached and that Shiny Hunters
persisted for at least a week after the public announcement.
To be clear, the way I understood this manifesting was, this was post-login.
(08:42):
My friend's daughter logged into Canvas, and they were presented with this ransom note.
They couldn't get around it, beyond it, click through it, open up study materials for finals
that are this week.
All they could see, all they could do was the ransom note.
(09:03):
So Mark, when you say that move or that shift from Salesforce data, which, I mean, yes,
it's important because, hello, infinite campus issue.
You pivot from Salesforce data to actually taking over the system.
Let's call it what it is.
(09:23):
This is a ransom, right?
You're paying our ransom, you're paying our fee, or you don't get your system back.
What did they have to do?
It's now in maintenance mode.
They took it down.
That is a pivot.
That is a huge pivot.
Yeah, this is scary.
And we'll also include Shiny Hunters has posted a list of impacted school districts.
(09:46):
I will say that this is a massive list of school districts and college campuses.
You should really take this with a grain of salt.
My former district is also listed in there, and we did not use Canvas.
And so that school district being listed on here does not necessarily mean that all of
your students' data was impacted, doesn't even mean that some of your students' data.
(10:08):
It just means that Shiny Hunters has posted a list of districts, and there may be some
data from your district listed in this.
It very well could be as simple as the directory level information, as we learned from the
Infinite Campus Fund.
It could be something more, especially if you're a district that uses this.
(10:29):
So we'll post a link to that public list of districts and colleges and universities.
The other thing, I had a district reach out to me and kind of say, hey, I'm not seeing
our district on this list, but we do use Canvas as our LMS.
What do you think?
Yeah, right.
Like, I said, man, if I were in your shoes, I would operate under the assumption that
(10:55):
we're on the list, whether or not we're displayed on the public list and what they're showing.
To me, you have to operate like you are, and that means contacting your insurance company.
I was going to say, what do you do?
Well, Missouri sent out an email to school districts this morning, and more or less flat
said, if you use Canvas, you need to contact your insurance company, period, end of sentence,
(11:18):
start a claim.
So I think that's the advice here.
If you're a Canvas customer, err on the side of caution, start a claim, get your notification
letter ready to parents.
The other interesting piece here is, yes, higher ed, this is one of the big providers
(11:40):
for higher ed.
Chris, your district and my district all have dual credit students.
If those kids are going to college or dual credit through a college that uses Canvas,
I've been told that that breach notification lies with the university or the college still,
(12:02):
not necessarily the school district.
But we all know that perception, you know, Susie or Johnny goes home today and says,
hey, I couldn't take my class this afternoon, my, you know, whatever university class because
of this note, parent, the perception there is the K-12 school district is responsible
(12:24):
because it's through the K-12, they're not drawing that connection to the university.
So I called my RPR guy and superintendent and high school principal this afternoon on
my way home and said, hey, this story that I told you about last week just got exponentially
worse, still doesn't necessarily impact us, but you need to have talking points ready
(12:45):
because the likelihood of us getting a call from a parent just increased a lot.
Sure.
Two things.
One's a sponsor.
Check out meter, meter.com slash slash K-12 tech talk.
That's meter.com slash K-12 tech talk.
They can design your hardware, software.
It's all networking stuff.
Think of them as like subscription based networking.
(13:06):
They can help you with all of your school districts networks.
So check out meter.
But second thing, the timing of this, again, it's May 7th when we're recording this.
It's finals time.
Yeah.
It's end of year time.
So if all these colleges now, even like our dual credit that we're talking about, can't
finish things out right now, that's which schools and colleges should have a plan for
(13:30):
this.
What do you do when your LMS is down?
I guess those are going to play out the worst time of year for some colleges.
Chris, how many years ago was it we had that bad ice storm right around Christmas break?
Yeah.
And we canceled finals or we canceled school during finals and I guess we pushed finals
(13:53):
to when they came back after the first of the year and we did a hold harmless type setting
where if they took the final and it knocked their grade down, we didn't count the final.
Like it wouldn't, their grade was their grade, but if it could only help their grade.
What the heck do you do in a university level at this case?
(14:15):
The timing of this has made me think, I think I talked about it last episode about my district.
We've been working on our incident response plan and our disaster recovery plan and we
finally spent some time with some business continuity stuff and I mean, this is in there.
These are the scenarios to play out.
So even though we're unpacking something happened at college, I mean, we can play, I mean, what
(14:35):
would happen if Google classroom was going to be down for a while?
What would happen if your system was going to be down for a while?
What's the plan?
And a funny little antidote to that, I think.
Anecdote.
Anecdote.
An antidote.
We were just going through our, I'm still saying it wrong.
It's the Fresca kicking in.
We were going through our business continuity plan and talking about what if our financial
(15:01):
system is down when it's payroll?
Yeah.
And our administration thought that our financial system was cloud-based and we wouldn't be
impacted by anything local and I was like, no, it's just, it's sitting in, that system
is just sitting in our office and we were shedding that light.
(15:21):
Like we are literally hosed and you know, we have backups and we walk through that thing,
but that talk about that disconnect where particular people don't know how those dominoes
are going to fall if the bad thing is happening.
I mean, this is another example of that.
Say it properly again.
Anecdote.
(15:41):
Thank you.
You said antidote like you got bit by a venomous snake.
Antidote.
No.
No.
I said it wrong on purpose that time at least.
I figured.
Uh, if you ever get bit by a venomous snake, just don't go into the hospital asking for
an anecdote.
Quick, give me the antidote.
You actually just said it right there.
(16:03):
You did too.
You're right.
You're correct.
Use case there.
Man.
Yesterday I was public speaking and I kept stuttering with my T's and I did the whole
today and I was like just melting.
So thanks for making fun of my speech impediments and stuff.
I took speech in fifth grade.
I've always struggled with stuff.
Thanks guys.
Well, maybe instead of speech, you should have paid attention in vocabulary class.
(16:28):
Yeah.
By a thesaurus.
Thesaurus?
Anyways, I mean, when you think about it, like at the, at the K-12 level, canvas being
down means like, okay, I'll turn in my homework tomorrow or like I'll see you tomorrow kind
of thing.
Whereas at the college campus level, a lot of this is being done asynchronously and so
(16:51):
you don't have that ability.
And so college professors like their emails might be overwhelmed.
Like you're sending out messages that way.
They're receiving papers for, you know, directly for their email address.
This is a much, much bigger deal at the college level than it is at the high school level.
We, we don't know the data that was stolen.
So we, you know, we could start to see, uh, some, some worse stories coming out of both
(17:14):
K-12 and higher ed.
But you know, people say I'm a pessimist.
I don't, I don't know if I agree with it, but you have to, it says that everybody give
us their names, pretty much everybody.
You have to admit if they've had, if they have the ability to take down your login page
(17:38):
or your post login page to only show a ransom note, you're pretty hosed.
You have to assume that the scope and the breadth of the data that they have is large,
deep and wide.
Wouldn't you agree?
Yeah.
I mean, I think the scariest part of all of this is that this comes one week after the
(18:02):
public disclosure of this entire thing.
So it's not like we all woke up one day and all of a sudden there was a ransom note.
It's well known about this for a week.
Instructure has known about this for a week.
They probably been pouring through their systems and all of a sudden this whole thing pops
up today.
How did you miss this?
(18:22):
Well, this is a huge lesson in recovery.
I think it's worth reading the note because Mark, you bring up an interesting point.
So it, you know, shiny hunters rooting your system since 2019.
This is an interesting statement to me, if true, which you have to assume it is.
(18:45):
Shiny hunters has breached Instructure, parentheses, again, instead of contacting us to resolve
a settlement, they ignored us and did some, quote, security patches.
If any of the schools in the affected list are interested in preventing the release of
their data, please consult with a cyber advisory firm and contact us privately at blank to
(19:07):
negotiate a settlement.
You'll have to the end of the day, May 12, 2026, before everything is leaked.
So that's a pretty bold claim.
It's like, yeah, they claim to fix it, but we had another way in that they didn't find
and we're here.
This is a big old, you know, what?
(19:29):
And it begs the question on, did they get in without credentials?
Like we would normally think were harvested and they got in like with an admin account
or something.
Like, did they get in?
Some other vulnerability, you know, like some unpatched vulnerability or, you know, God
only knows.
It doesn't make you feel very good.
Well, at this point, there's more that we don't know than more than we do.
(19:50):
So we'll probably be talking about this for the next couple of weeks, if not even sooner,
as we start to learn more, hopefully from Instructure, because all we have right now
is just a maintenance note from the company and then there are one or two messages from
last week.
So to be determined.
And Chris has emailed them, right, Chris?
Yeah.
Do you think they'll come in like in the midst of this or I don't know.
(20:15):
I couldn't imagine, you know, being in their shoes, going through this, you know, Shiny
Hunters.
Okay.
Was it Salesforce stuff?
Okay.
We got it patched, boss.
And then a week later, this happens.
Yeah.
The patch guy's feeling some pressure right now.
Well, I was texting another friend earlier this evening and we were talking, I'm like,
(20:40):
you wouldn't have to fire me at that point.
I quit.
You will never see me again.
I'm going to go take up a living, cutting grass at a golf course or something.
Two things.
One's a sponsor.
Check out Visor, visor.cloud slash K-12 Tech Talk.
They can do your IT asset management for your school, manage your one-to-one program, your
(21:04):
asset inventory, barcode check-in and check-out, track device repairs and more.
They have a new integrated help desk, K-12 ticketing option as well.
Second thing.
Josh, how quick do you think you could pack up your stuff in your office?
Like if you were like, I'm out.
20 minutes.
Not even.
Not even.
(21:24):
You're like, ready.
I don't, not many things there hold value to me.
So I'd be fine just leaving.
Wow.
That was a brutal statement.
I mean, there's like a picture of my family.
There's a 3D printed Groot.
I can only see Chris's background when he's at work and I can already tell he's got at
(21:51):
least three hours.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Please give me some time, boss.
Yeah.
His, his lightsaber is there.
I don't have anything like that there.
No, that's, it's work, not home.
All right.
Shall we move on?
Sure.
What else?
We shall.
But first, PowerGistics.
They can do your charging stations.
They can do your Chromebook charging stations, all your device charging stations, and more.
(22:15):
They are designed for kids that have great use.
They can figure out these charging stations really well.
Hopefully help you with less breaks, that kind of thing, because they're so easy to
use.
So check out PowerGistics.
I really hope.
It's that kind of episode.
Just people aren't keeping count.
What else you got, Mark?
(22:36):
I mean, I got to keep talking or Chris is going to do another sponsor thing in a second.
So let's just keep it moving here.
All right.
Federal level.
Federal level.
Your senator, actually, in Missouri, Josh Hawley, is, is.
Yeah.
Yours, Josh.
Yours.
I haven't even said anything yet.
Get us out of here.
No.
No, no, no, no.
I think you can get behind this one.
(22:59):
This is called the GARD Act, the Guidelines for User Age Verification and Responsible
Dialogue.
This is a federal bill aimed at banning AI companion chatbots for minors.
I am on board with this one with a couple of kind of caveats here, though, but this
would prohibit AI companions from interacting with children and teens under the age of 18.
(23:19):
This is specifically going after things like character AI, the tools where kids can make
a friend and talk about it.
So not necessarily banning AI, but more of the companions, the social medical advice
type things.
Companies could face a fine of up to $100,000 per offense if AI engages in sexually explicit
(23:39):
content or promotes violence with minors.
Now here's where I get a little bit concerned about these bills.
I'm on board with putting restrictions for children and making sure that these things
are safe before I put them in their hands, either at home or at school.
However, in order for companies to know that it's dealing with a child-
You have to verify it.
You have to verify it.
(23:59):
So this is where I always get nervous and I'm kind of conflicted on these bills, is
that it does require all users to undergo age verification to interact with AI chatbots.
So I think the devil is in the details on this one.
If we're talking about AI in general, you know, I think that should, you know, you shouldn't
really have to put in a driver's license for those kinds of things.
(24:21):
But if you're signing up for a specific site like character AI, I feel like it's a little
bit different.
But still, I don't like the idea of websites collecting driver's licenses in other age
documentation.
So that's where I get a little bit nervous about this one.
I will say though, that Holly has also clarified that this would not impact schools for legitimate
(24:45):
educational or tutoring purposes.
So thoughts on any of that bill?
I agree with you completely.
I'm not uploading my driver's license anywhere because it'll end up going to Planeteer or
Palantir, however you pronounce it.
Agree.
This week, so our AI committee I've talked about several times over the course of time.
(25:07):
This has been our week that we're meeting with our high schoolers and our middle schoolers,
librarian going through this ethics lesson with all middle school and high school kids
and unpacking what our AI policy and regulation is, but in kid terms.
I got to be in the library for one of those lessons and hear her talk about asking the
(25:32):
kids questions about their AI usage at home.
And if they find themselves asking AI, these questions that you would typically ask another
person, but you can ask an AI bot and it gives up like this relational answer.
And the kids were surprisingly open in that session that I was in that, yeah, they're
(25:52):
doing that.
And again, so there's a legit concern there because what the AI is giving back is not
that human connection of good advice or whatever.
Random side quest note on that, super interesting in all these classes, the kids overwhelmingly
have been, they are okay with them using AI for things, but they express hesitation
(26:14):
that teachers are creating and using AI like on them.
And then we have our teachers that want to use AI, don't want the kids to use it.
Super interesting conversations this week as we've done that too.
I mean, I guess you could say I'm kind of the same way when it comes to AI tutoring.
I feel like I could go to an AI chat bot and ask it for advice and take it, obviously
(26:38):
with a grain of salt.
I'm nervous about other people using them.
I'm nervous about, especially minors using them for mental health or counseling because
these things are very sycophantic.
It's going to tell the student or the child exactly what it wants to hear.
At least I feel like I could distinguish between what is right or what's wrong and have a more,
(26:59):
I guess you could say honest conversation, but I do worry about what happens when kids
start using these things for counseling, for medical advice, for social interactions.
You know what I hate?
A lot.
AI generated TV commercials.
They're horrible.
I agree.
I think the tutoring thing, I think it's that same thing.
(27:21):
I think this is what the problem is.
If you sit a kid down to interact with a computer to just do tutoring, the natural
thing is that that kid is going to start asking more of those counselor questions once that
tutoring thing is established.
That's that hard line.
We can even go back, and I know there's good and bad tutors, but when a kid has a tutor,
(27:45):
it's usually because they're looking for someone that can do that special connection with the
kid that can make them think a different way.
I have a hard time thinking that the AI bot is going to unlock that as easy as the human
tutor can.
Yeah, sure, you can prove me wrong in a year, whatever this stuff advances, but it's just
this easy thing.
(28:05):
Like you said, Mark, with tutoring, your natural thing is to ask this bot more questions about
things beyond just what you're trying to learn about.
Throwback to last week's episode with that quizzing tool throwing a generative AI and
chat AI into their tool, that's where the concern comes with here.
(28:26):
I mean, yes, there's a cheating concern as well, but there is also a who's really watching
what's taking place on a tool that nobody knew that was coming.
That's a huge, huge issue.
I guess in this thing, mandatory disclosure, chat bots must clearly disclose to all users
that they are not human.
So what?
(28:47):
That's just a little sentence like, yeah, that ain't going to hit.
What's that going to do?
Yeah.
So what?
Yeah.
All right.
Well, let's move on before Chris does another advertisement here.
The National Bureau of Economic Research has published a paper called The Effects of School
Phone Bans, National Evidence for Lockable Pouches.
This is going to be really, this is going to make me mad and go on a rant.
(29:09):
I already know what you're going to say.
Hold on, because I think so, because a lot of people have quoted parts of this on social
media, on LinkedIn and things like that.
Now I'm going to go through the statistics and then I'm going to kind of caveat some
of these statistics with a little bit of context here.
So the National Bureau of Economic Research has looked at things like Yonder and said,
(29:34):
what happened in the year or two after schools banned this?
Now that's the first thing is that this is only looking at one or two years, very, very
statistically small percentage of data that you're looking at from a longitudinal perspective.
They looked at social emotional, they looked at academic and you did find some modest positive
(29:57):
gains in academic achievement at the high school level, although very, very statistically
insignificant, less than a percentile point increase.
So it's almost hard to pinpoint the pouches as being the source of that 1% point increase.
Middle schools saw negative effects on achievement, again, very, very small, but they did see
(30:21):
after cell phones were banned with these lockable pouches that middle school achievement, academic
achievement slightly dipped.
They believe that this was the result of the disciplinary incidents increasing.
So overall, about 16% of disciplinary incidents increased, which is one of the connections
(30:42):
of why maybe academics slightly dipped at the middle school level is because students
were a little more dysregulated with their cell phones and they were finding other ways
to distract.
So I will say this, there was more positive output or more positive outcomes for cell
phone bans than negative.
It's just a very interesting look to see statistically does a cell phone ban impact academic achievement
(31:08):
or is it more of a cultural move than anything?
I think to make assertions and try and draw a statistic, statistical significance of not
even a year or a year of something is stupid.
(31:30):
Anybody that took statistics 101 should know that you need more than one year's worth of
data after making a change like that to be able to draw a statistic corollary.
That's to me, that's completely unreasonable.
This was a pretty holistic look at schools with these bans and schools without it, and
(31:53):
so that's where they're comparing more the schools with and without than it is more longitudinal,
but I agree.
I think it is going to take a much longer time period than one year to see this.
I also think too that kids having cell phones at home also brings in other issues into schools.
You have students who are interacting on social media, the anxiety, the social interactions
(32:17):
that you might have at home get carried into the classroom, so you're right.
It's a very statistically insignificant number, but I think overall teachers, principals,
and students are all seeing this as a positive move, so whether or not the data shows it
as a negative or positive consequence, I'm on board with these kinds of moves.
(32:41):
Yeah, not just a Missouri thing or a Midwest thing.
We've seen people talk about it on K-12 Tech Pro and K-12 Sys Admin.
Everyone likes the cell phone ban stuff.
The cafeteria sounds different.
The classrooms look different.
Teachers like it.
Principals like it.
There are significantly more library books being checked out.
(33:03):
So you're kind of like- Significantly more.
You're in the trenches of that, seeing the goodness, so you're like, okay, you gave me
a report after a year, get that trash out of here.
We're seeing it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't think I see too many schools and districts and states saying, we're going to ban cell
phones because we think it's going to lead to immediate academic achievement or positive
(33:29):
behavior.
I do think it's much more of a cultural move than anything, and culture eats strategy for
breakfast.
If you can help a culture where cell phones are not needed or necessary, then you can
start to build a much more focused and strategic academic culture.
So again, I'm in favor of cell phone bans.
I always have been, but hopefully the data will show it over time.
(33:53):
No, we're going to increase test scores by screen time bans.
This is reminding me too of how I always struggle with a diet, because if I don't lose weight
quickly after a week, I'm like, this diet's stupid.
That's the same vibe of this.
What do you mean things aren't better after a couple of days?
(34:15):
Bring the phones back.
I'd go back to my nighttime eating.
I have to admit, I saw that new Fitbit today, I was like, oh, that's it?
The new Fitbit's what's going to get, no, it's not going to get me out of shape.
I will, I'll eat, you know, healthy breakfast, lunch, and then get on the scale and nothing
has changed.
So then I'll binge eat like five snacks before bed, and then I try again the next day and
(34:43):
repeat.
All right.
Well, that's all I've got for the news.
Chris, do you want to hit your last 18 sponsors and then pivot to the interview?
I do, and then we get an interview.
So yeah, thanks for listening.
We love that you guys listen and thanks to our sponsors that make this episode and the
events that we do possible.
And speaking of events, we do want to give a quick rundown of what our calendar is looking
(35:06):
like, but that's thanks to our sponsors.
So let me get through a couple of them.
You can check out Extreme Networks.
You can email our friend, Dominic Mayer at dmayeratextremenetworks.com.
I'm doing some switch upgrades this summer.
You should too.
Lightspeed Systems, proud sponsor of this podcast, they have a screen time product that
can help you with tracking that usage.
(35:27):
We're going to email Amy with Lightspeed in a couple of weeks to discuss screen time because
Lightspeed has an opinion about screen time that I think you're going to find interesting.
Manage Methods, managemethods.com.
They can look at your Google and Microsoft environments and keep you safe as they do
their scanning.
And Fortinet, email fortinetpodcast at fortinet.com.
(35:48):
Get your Forti on, your FortiGate, FortiAnalyzer, and more.
Next week, KTOL Tech Pro, Nathan's going to be at the Actum Conference in Maine, May 11th.
If you're in Maine, come and check out Nathan there.
June 16th to the 17th, Rooks over at KTOL Tech Pro will be at the Summit LTC Conference
in Illinois.
And then July 6th to the 10th, we're going to be at Gamus in Savannah, Georgia, beautiful
(36:12):
Savannah, Georgia.
The three of us will be at that podcast table.
And then July 19th to the 21st, we will be at Midwest Tech Talk here in Missouri.
Check out midwesttechtalk.com.
Come and hang out with us there.
But last but not least, I got to hang out with Delladeo.
This is going to be an interview with them.
Learn about what Delladeo has to offer your school.
(36:34):
Thanks for listening.
All right, I am hanging out with Dave Barclay, the Director of Product with Delladeo.
Dave, how's it going?
It's going great, Chris.
Thanks for having us.
Dave, I love when you jumped on this thing with me, the first question you asked me,
and we might as well unpack it on the air, was about ribs.
So you're a rib guy.
Absolutely.
(36:55):
I am.
I am.
I had a smoker a friend had given us to us, one of those little pellet ones.
And for Father's Day one year, she got me a real deal kind of, you know, charcoal smoker.
And I've been playing around with that now.
We're upstate New York and far enough upstate that our pizza is okay.
But you know, I'm experimenting with these ribs here.
(37:18):
So I understand I'm in the presence of, you know, like real ribs in Missouri.
So I will.
Yeah.
So I was telling you my ribs, I will say my ribs are good, but my father's ribs are better
than mine.
I love that my dad likes my ribs.
That makes me feel like I've grown up or whatever, but I do the fake stuff too.
I do a pellet grill.
(37:39):
It's probably better than yours if we're being real.
I'm sure it is.
It's whatever.
Okay.
Enough about the ribs.
I guess we should talk about Delladeo.
I guess, tell me a little bit about yourself, but then, you know, segue that straight into
if I'm listening and I have no idea what Delladeo is, what you guys do, would you unpack that
(37:59):
for me?
Absolutely.
So personally for me, I started off as a classroom teacher, well, like 27 years ago, kind of
saw the break between ed tech and like where ed tech was right within that one computer
classroom.
And when I was asked to do a presentation for the school board saying why I needed to
(38:21):
have a classroom webpage and my grades online, I decided that I'd probably go into this ed
tech piece.
So from there, I've been a IT consultant.
I worked in the Middle East and Abu Dhabi colleges and consulting there before kind
of getting into the private sector here with Delladeo into director product.
(38:43):
So, you know, kind of that ed tech, IT director piece, and I'm personally, I've got two high
school boys.
I'm a varsity football and varsity wrestling coach and a PTA president.
So it's really interesting how my personal life and professional life kind of mix all
together.
And, you know, as we well know, your middle school boys are your worst abusers on the
(39:05):
content filter and having direct access to them is a good focus group to deal with, you
know, daily.
I have three kids.
One has graduated.
She's in college.
I have a senior and then a fourth grader.
My senior was just advising my fourth grader to not tell dad about the blocked websites
and the unblocked games because that's snitching.
(39:29):
She still thinks I'm like awesome that, you know, I get the blocked websites and stuff.
So she's still telling me things.
But he gave that great advice to not let dad know the tech problems of the school.
So Chris, just a little bit of insight for you.
They will sell anybody out for an ice cream Snickers bar.
And it's like, you know, when I was coaching middle school wrestling, you know, I walked
(39:52):
into sports study hall and say, hey, anybody that can get around the filter, show me and
I'll give you an ice cream Snickers bar and they will sell everybody out that they know.
And it's great.
So just put that one aside.
Well, we do a special email address because bug bounty at our school district.
And we encourage our high school, middle school kids, if they can figure out a bug, you know,
(40:15):
a Chromebook issue, whatever, whatever, that's the setting that we should change.
Or we'll take a website that, you know, we're not blocking that we should.
And then I'll pass that kid like a bag of candy and try to try to keep it on the down
low.
But OK, so I know the difference, actually.
Will you unpack the difference of Deladayo versus the others that are out there?
(40:37):
Sure.
So Deladayo, it's a K-12 content filtering classroom management and student safety tool.
What makes us different is we're utilizing real time AI to analyze web activity as it
happens.
So this component's been a real game changer for us because it allows districts to do a
better job protecting students, reducing distractions, but in an ever changing dynamic
(41:02):
online environment.
And now kind of that we've we've done a great job on that side.
We can focus on things like getting the tech out of the way.
We'll talk about that.
But that's that's kind of been our theme as a company, right?
We're doing a great job keeping students safe.
The AI is doing a great job of reducing and eliminating distractions.
(41:22):
But we want to get that tech out of the way to reduce overblocking.
And so teachers can get that content necessary to run their lessons and run their school
day.
Yeah, I have a I guess I'd say a colleague that was I guess he's probably still in the
midst of a demo with with with you guys, and he was shocked in a good way at what was being
(41:45):
blocked and was being blocked because it wasn't an improvement based upon, you know,
the traditional thing that we think about a whitelist, a blacklist, you know, what we
allow, what what what we don't just basing it upon categories that are always constantly
changing.
I guess, would you unpack that a little bit?
So AI is doing its thing with the content filter.
(42:06):
So it's just making decisions based upon what it's seeing in real time.
Yeah, so exactly.
So, you know, for instance, you check a category that you want blocked.
Let's say gambling.
And you know, it's going to it can see it can see the text, it can see images, it can
even evaluate that video.
So now it blurs the video in real time, it sees the images that can blur or block the
(42:29):
images in real time.
And depending on, you know, kind of the mix of these things that will make the determination
is this blur?
Or do we just block the page outright?
Do we block the text and kind of block the text out and redact it?
Or do we just say, you know what, this is out of bounds, and it goes beyond that.
So it with the nature of the web, where, you know, you can spin up a website in 20 minutes,
(42:54):
and kids are now more than adept at doing this.
We don't have to worry about some somebody kind of cataloging these websites, it really
is doing a great job of adapting to this dynamic environment.
When you mentioned student safety, what is Della Dale doing in regards to student safety?
(43:15):
That's a newer, newer thing, maybe?
It is.
And this is, this is really what started off as content filtering years ago, then schools
started to say, hey, well, we want classroom management.
And now you've got classroom management bundled with content filtering.
And then this wellness piece is kind of been the latest thing that's come out in the last
(43:36):
few years, where all right, we want our content filter to keep kids safe while they're browsing.
But we also want the content filter, there's an expectation of this wellness component.
So if a child is, you know, like doing a search for, say, suicide online, you know, like how
to kill myself, that needs to report back on that.
Or if the student is writing something concerning, say, in a Google Doc, we can report back on
(44:01):
that.
The district says, hey, I want to check self-harm.
And then based upon that, now it's directing the AI on what to look for.
So it's always in the district's control.
And we're able to respect that culture and climate that, you know, in Missouri, it's
different than it is in California or Massachusetts or wherever they happen to be.
(44:24):
And so we're able to address those cultural expectations, and then report accordingly.
Okay.
Yes, tell me a little bit further.
So when something is flagged, what happens?
Who finds that out?
So it really depends on your internal structure, right?
(44:44):
So we've got schools that are 100 students, we've got schools that are 20, 30,000 students.
And so those can be routed to however you wish.
So we've got different types of alerts that would go through.
You and your IT staff may want to be alerted on certain specific things.
But you've got guidance counselors, wellness counselors, even police in some cases there
(45:07):
where they've got that kind of school resource officer in that close community.
And the district then decides how you want this routed and who's to be notified and in
what order and based upon what time.
And does that come via email?
Email, text.
Again, it's up to that district to determine what is the best delivery method for those
(45:29):
pieces there.
Okay, cool.
Hey, let me give you, I think, a little bit of a hot seat one.
So some debate sometimes about student privacy, whether or not a school or a tech should be
having that whole insight to what the kid is doing, but then also student safety, protecting
the student.
Deladato's approach to that, where does that fit in there with those insights?
(45:53):
Yeah, so first and foremost, we adhere to every local, federal, and state guideline
as it applies to student data privacy, right?
So we don't use any of this data for anything that would be outside of those restrictions
right there.
We do, as I mentioned before, the district can then decide what they want to report on.
(46:19):
And we're fairly specific.
We've been doing this for a while now, and we know the hot button issues that a district
wants reported on.
So we'll use self-harm, for instance.
The district says they want alerts on self-harm, they want to block self-harm web searches
and content coming on the web, and then they can determine how those alerts are surfaced
(46:44):
and who then gets those alerts, for sure.
But there is some level of expectation that's saying, hey, as your network administrator,
well, your super administrator, you've got control and visibility into lots of content,
email for the district.
So there's an expectation that there comes a certain point where your IT staff will need
(47:08):
to be able to manage these pieces here, which is no different than Google, for instance,
with Gmail.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, let me pick your brain on this one.
This isn't so hot seat, though, I don't think.
If I'm a tech and I'm looking at my content filter, and I'm going to make a decision,
typically, I'm trying to forecast the next two, three, four, five years, what are things
(47:30):
I should be looking at in a content filter today?
But I think even, can you tell me what you think I should be looking at with a three-year
plan in mind?
Sure.
So first, let's say what you should be looking at for today, right?
I have not spoken with an IT director that's on their first content filter, right?
(47:54):
Everybody's been around, they've been to the shows, especially if you're shopping these
things out.
You most likely have used one of the big players out there, if not all of the big players out
there over the years, right?
We started off with a homebound appliance, and then we just needed a SIPA, and then grew
in there.
So IT admins are fairly well-schooled and understand what they're up against.
(48:23):
In making the decision, you've got three components to this.
I'd say it's price, features, and fit, okay?
So price, schools are price-sensitive.
You've got a limited budget with this, you know what your price was last year.
So obviously, it needs to fit that.
And then it says, well, at this price point, am I going to sacrifice on features?
(48:47):
Am I going to sacrifice on fit?
And features could be, it could be AI, it could be reporting, it could, you know, like,
what do you need?
And there's a fair amount of parity across the big players here.
So there isn't going to be too much of a difference, right?
But it really comes into that fit.
(49:08):
What is going to fit your culture and your school and your needs?
Who's going to be growing and adapting?
And then, you know, providing those features to ensure that the fit is there.
Because sometimes, if the fit isn't there, like, let's say you really like the filter,
but not the content-managing piece.
Remember, we said, like, these are now all kind of purchased together.
(49:29):
It's that single pane of glass.
Those are the big components that they need to figure out.
And it isn't necessarily up to the IT director.
We do a lot of demos and a lot of pilots by committee.
So you've got the IT staff that's putting in, they've got to vote.
You've got the faculty, you've got, you know, a number of voices that need to be satisfied
(49:52):
to make sure that that fit is there.
That's probably, and there may be many techs that listen to this that won't like what you
just said.
But the old school way of thinking about a content filter, I think a K-12 tech has typically
just thought, that's my problem and that's my solution, and without that extra input.
I think that's a pretty wise thing you just said, because we expect more out of our content
(50:17):
filter.
We are getting to this great place where we expect, want the teacher to have the insight
to what the kid's doing.
The principal needs to be able to look at that easier.
A lot of the old school or been around for a long time content filters, you know, the
tech department is still heavily relied on to pull that stuff out of there.
So I like that you said that.
(50:37):
Set up a committee, a worthwhile committee, and let them have some input there.
And, you know, just to pull on that a little bit more, right, is that the old school content
filters, and this is back when I was doing it, nobody wanted anything to do with it.
Just block, you know, just block the SIPA stuff, and that was that.
(50:59):
But now there's so much more to it, right?
So like what we can do is we can provide students the ability to unblock, you know,
request an unblock.
All right, well, does the IT, like I've talked to IT directors, and they don't want just
that responsibility, because now if a student sees out of bounds content, well, who's the
(51:20):
superintendent going to be calling, right?
And that's so, so now that needs to be a broader decision.
So what I'd say to the IT director is, like, no, this should be my decision.
Well, it doesn't need to be anymore, because there are things that are, that can be distributed
(51:41):
out, like, you know, a lot of IT admins weren't classroom teachers.
And so why would we ask an IT admin specifically to say, well, I want you to evaluate these
websites whether it's good for education or not.
And that's where we can have a productive conversation with the larger school community
to help drive that so that when something does come up, it's been that cultural fit.
(52:03):
Yep, I like it.
All right, last question, I think.
Why if I'm a K-12 tech, why should I consider Dell Adeo above the others?
Well, as we said before, you probably looked at other filters that are out there, right?
Is, you know, how is the fit then with those filters?
Where are the frustration points then with filters?
(52:26):
You know, one thing that I've come to notice is nobody's in love with their content filter,
right?
No, I'm never leaving because there's always some pain point with that.
So as you're evaluating these filters, as you're looking for what you've got next year,
and it goes back to that price features and fit, is where is the growth going?
(52:48):
Where are your pain points and how can those be addressed moving forward?
You'll notice that everybody in the industry now is talking about some kind of AI component
to their filter, which that's a convenient term to use, but what's the meaning behind
that?
Where's the proof in that?
And so that's where it needs to be dynamic and kind of relying on lists, relying on kind
(53:12):
of the staticness of legacy filters.
That's where that becomes problematic.
So that would be my, I guess, challenge, as it were, as you phrased it, to an IT admin
evaluating filters.
Who is kind of moving in this direction?
Because as we're seeing like this anthropic mythos, that's kind of like a doomsday scenario.
(53:35):
But what does that mean for everything else?
That means that today an enterprising student can go home, can use AI with GitHub to spin
up a game site, and now he's got that, and he's going to post it on Discord, and he's
going to change the URL every day.
You don't want to block the same, you know, the URL that adds a one or a two, right?
(53:57):
That's just madness.
So who's going to be able to evolve to address that nuisance, really, on the IT admin side?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Well, Dave, nice to meet you.
Yeah.
And if you're a Cato Tech listening to this, check out delladeo, delladeo.com.
I'm sure you can get a demo.
I know that you can.
Dave, anything else?
(54:17):
Am I missing anything at all?
No, it's, you know, you all have a, it's a hard job.
It's a thankless job.
And what you're trying to do as IT admins is get a school district to go in a direction
where you're nobody's boss, right?
And that's, you really need to be evangelists for what you're doing and what you're believing.
(54:39):
So we're here to help.
We understand that.
You're talking to somebody here that's, I'm in a school bus or in a classroom, you know,
five or six days a week.
So I, I, I'm right there with you guys.
I love it.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Chris.
(55:06):
The views and opinions expressed on the K-12 Tech Talk podcast are the personal opinions
of Josh, Chris, and Mark, and do not represent the views or opinions of our sponsors or other
organizations that we're affiliated with.
The material and information presented here is for general information and entertainment
purposes only.
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.
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