IT Trends

Students Get Mobile During Remote Learning

• By David Nagel
• 05/13/21

Students have been moving around quite a bit during remote learning — sometimes studying at friends houses, sometimes studying from multiple states.

That’s one of the ancillary findings of a report the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) issued this month, the Student Home Connectivity Study. The findings are based on data collected from 13 school districts representing some 750,000 students.

According to the report: “During the study, many students participated in online school activities from locations outside of the student’s home. Students accessed school learning resources from other student homes and even other cities, states, and countries. In the study, many students shared an IP address with other students that were not from the same household. Likely causes include students wanting social interaction with other kids, finding a faster internet connection at a friend’s house, and parents who share childcare responsibilities.”

Given the popularity of K–12 institutions among criminals, the report recommended “being vigilant about network security” and using authentication to ensure security vulnerabilities are addressed “before attacks can occur.”

CoSN offers a free guide to internet security for remote learning during the pandemic.

The full report is freely available at cosn.org.

See also:

• Report: Districts Should Help Families with Their WiFi Needs

• Study: Device Quality Impacts Remote Learning

• Landmark Study Calls for Increased Bandwidth for At-Home Learning