NOVI QUESTS

How private is your digital data? How private is your students’ data? In this day and age, privacy and security have become VERY important topics… far more important than Yesvi’s light and bubbly quests. This is a hefty quest which deals with FIPPA (BC’s Freedom of Information & Privacy Protection Act) and digital privacy (personal and your students). All students who have completed this quest have found it to be “eye opening” and useful.

Our awareness of misinformation and disinformation has become acute. Welcome to my world, world. People won’t think I’m a conspiracy theorist anymore. We have seen the power of dis-misinformation in the governmental and political processes below the border, and are still seeing masses of similar issues around vaccination and mask-wearing around the Covid-19 pandemic. But an acute awareness of the problem does not really help folks deal with it. In fact, it seems that there is a lot of fake news about fake news. Who knew! An even more hefty quest than the Digital Privacy Quest. This quest deals with some of the underlying issues and provides a start in rethinking the dis-misinformation problems.

For this quest, you can claim as much time as it takes, with each minute = 1 XP. Note that this quest has taken folks between three and five hours.

This quest uses a hyperdoc, which means your respond to the various portions of the quest within the document.

Instructions:

• • Start your timer (You are claiming XP based on time on task)

  • Sign in to your Google Workspace account

  • MISINFORMATION | DISINFORMATION QUEST (Click on it to make your own copy.)

  • Follow the instructions at the top of the document CAREFULLY, please

  • Complete the quest

  • Add the URL of the shared document to the Quest Submission Form box below

  • Click the blue Submit Quest for Completion button at the bottom

Avi will make comments on the document when he returns it to you.

CLAIMING QUEST

Use the SELF-DIRECTED REPEATING QUEST to claim this quest. Make sure you claim the XP you want.

We wander around with our phones, connecting to wifi here and there, with apps that are revealing our locations, with tracking software that informs our apps and our phone creator of all sorts of private information. I think if we could place tiny cameras on the bits of data we share (knowingly and unknowingly), we would be surprised by where our private information goes… and how much of it is shared. I am not even sure we can legitimately have privacy these days, with or without mobile devices (See my “rant” about the Facebook Glasses above.).

But you can make your phone more private and secure. This quest has you do so.

1. Start your timer (You are claiming XP based on time on task)

2. Find and peruse the privacy settings on your phone.

   • Which apps have access to your location?

   • Which apps have access to your photos?

   • Which apps have access to your camera?...

   • Continue looking through and make adjustments as needed based on how private and secure you wish your phone to be.

3. Find if you are allowing the phone to provide analytics to the phone maker.

4. Find if you are allowing your phone to personalize ads.

5. How difficult is it to get into your phone? Can you make it more difficult?

6. How much information are you sharing with the various apps on your phone? Select three and look into it.

7. Research how to make your phone more secure and private. Use a search term like: improve your iphone security and privacy. That term returned advice like: igeeksblog.com and blog.fixxoo.com
   The same term with Android instead of iPhone returned advice like: restoreprivacy.com and androidpolice.com
   Use your research skills to come up with other advice as you wish.

CLAIMING QUEST

Use the SELF-DIRECTED REPEATING QUEST to claim this quest. Make sure you claim the XP you want.

There is a plethora of articles and videos out there on privacy and security.

If you have found something of interest, use it to create your own quest on the topic.

HANDLING THIS QUEST

This can be a reflection, or a post, or something completely different. Yeah, yeah... I know that doesn't sound like me. Yesvi and Avi are watching.

Don't forget to start your timer (You are claiming XP based on time on task)

POSSIBLE QUESTIONS WITH-WHICH TO ENGAGE

• What are your initial thoughts about the piece?

• What are your experiences related to the content of the piece?

• What have you observed (your life, classroom...)

• What would I say?

• What would Yesvi say? (As if we really care)

• What are your thoughts on how the content of this piece fits with your credo?

• How will engaging in this piece change your activities or practice?

• What do you want to say about this piece which has not been brought up in these questions?

A FEW OPTIONS FOR PIECES

• How much is being revealed by the photo data on mobile phone and how to deal with it? iPhone | Android

• DuckDuckGo is a search engine focused on privacy. Here is a set of "how to" articles for various privacy concerns and topics. Pick and choose.

• DuckDuckGo Device Privacy Advice

• DuckDuckGo Privacy Research

• Common Sense Media has great, in-depth articles on digital privacy for our students.

• PrivacyCanada.net has Canada-centric information on privacy, some terrific articles and tools.

CLAIMING QUEST

Use the SELF-DIRECTED REPEATING QUEST to claim this quest. Make sure you claim the XP you want. Don't forget to include the time used perusing various sites in your XP claim.

Avi loves GWFE. Whatever. I don’t know why we can’t just use Brightspace like the most of the professors do. It is limiting… but so what. It is not what you will be using with your students… but so what. It recently went public with a stock offering… but so what.

Whenever I discuss this with Avi he goes on and on about the 72 page Privacy Impact Assessment he did for VIU and how the Consent form is leading edge because it is online… blah, blah, blah. Workspace for education is so secure… so privacy focused…blah, blah, blah... so what. He should marry it.

Look, I admit it is skookum and all, but I think you should at least have a look at your data and privacy. I think you should set up two-factor authentication… I actually think you should do that with everything. I know it is a pain in the buttoosky, but it is worth it. So… every time I try to log in to GWFE, it sends a notification to my gmail app on my phone and I have to tell it that it is me. Pain? Yes. Worth it? Yes.

This is the kind of thing I would like you to look at now.

Log into your VIU GWFE or your personal account and go here: https://myaccount.google.com/

On the navigation on the left, you should see:

• Personal Info

• Data & Privacy

• Security

What to do:

• Delve into each one of those areas like a vet looking for ticks on a husky.

• Take your time. Take an hour of your time here. Going through this will improve your understanding of what to look for in other apps. Note that, because of the GDPR compliance requirements, almost all apps now must provide options to delete ALL personal data off their servers. I tested this with a service I no longer needed and it worked really well. I was surprised.

• Click links on the pages to find out more. Don’t rush. You get credit for your time here.

• I challenge you to set up two-factor authentication. I double challenge you.

• What else can you do to improve privacy and security?

That’s it. That is all I am asking you to do here.

CLAIMING QUEST

Use the SELF-DIRECTED REPEATING QUEST to claim this quest. Make sure you claim the XP you want.