ReclaimMyID

Coronavirus has brought a variety of changes to our everyday lives. Masks, social distancing, working from home. Many children have had their routines upended as well, having to go to school online. Every state and county adhere to different policies, but most kids have experienced remote learning at some point over the last 8 months. With this new norm comes new technology and new dangers that you may not be familiar with. Safely learning from home will be accomplished by understanding where possible dangers might lie and how to combat them.

What Is Remote Learning?

Also called distance learning, remote learning is the act of learning in an arena which isn’t face-to-face. Most distance learning takes place at home, over the internet. With the need to quarantine and social distance due to Coronavirus, distance learning became a way for kids to still go to school.

If your child is enrolled in remote learning, their school should provide you with guidelines for both students and parents to follow. Every school is different, so you should take the time to read over all policies and guidelines.

How Do I Protect My Child?

The first step to keeping your child safe is to know what to look for and what not to do.

Never sign up for any website or app with a personal e-mail address. Your child should be provided with an e-mail address from the school or county.
Always use a unique, strong password for every login that is required of your child. Never share login information with anyone.
You should never add any unnecessary personal information to the profile section of any website, system or app.
Ensure that your child knows not to interact with anyone online that they don’t know. This includes not accepting unsolicited messages, phone calls, texts, files or screen sharing from people they don’t know personally. Your children should never download any files from unknown sources.
If your child is required to use a specific VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), take time to go through the system with them. This will allow you both to become familiar with how things work. You can also take this time to let them know what not to do. This goes for any app or system that your child is required to use.
Always keep your computer’s operating system and anti-virus software up-to-date. Updates will often have patches to combat the latest security threats. Without these updates you may be susceptible to new dangers.

Distance or remote learning looks like it will become more and more common in the future. If you use the information above to your advantage, your child will be safely learning from home with no issues.