I heard from a fellow teacher in my school this week that IT is going to be banning the use of flashdrives in district computers next year for security purposes.
It makes sense - the ability to boot smaller operating systems like Linux or OS 9 from a thumbdrive, or any game (aside from any malicious file that can be introduced) poses a security risk that twarts all the firewalls and access guidelines the district can proactively employ. Even the most well-meaning, innocent user could unknowingly contract a worm on their home machine and then transfer it to the district server when opening their lesson for the day. 'Nough said; I get the reasons.
The question that came to mind when I breezily shared this with a class yesterday was this: do we even need flashdrives anymore? Certainly as an alternative to floppys, CDs, and ZIP disks the flashdrive was a welcome addition. However, with growing free space on district servers, remote access to shared space from email/IM/news clients like FirstClass, and the recently announced free space for any file in Google docs, are they even necessary?
Could you live without your flashdrive?
To answer my own question: "YES. (mostly)" The only thing I use my flashdrive for is running my own version of Chrome. I save everything on the school servers that follow me anywhere in the building or in GoogleDocs which follow me anywhere I can access the internet.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do use my flashdrive most often for now is transferring files to my non-networked mac g3 in the classroom that I use for students catching up on old notes. I'd say I don't need the flashdrive for this because I can use CD-RW and the burner on my main machine, but that is even "worse" than saying I use a flashdrive. :)