Ella’s Lost Pictures - About Backups

“No, no, no!” Ella’s desperate voice echoed through the classroom, and all the children looked up from their work. Teacher Lisa hurried to Ella’s desk.

“What happened, Ella?” she asked worriedly.

Ella stared horrified at her tablet. “My presentation about the space project… it’s gone! I’ve been working on it all week and the presentation is tomorrow!”

Teacher Lisa bent down and looked at the screen. “What do you mean by ‘gone’? Have you looked in all the folders?”

“Yes!” said Ella desperately. “I finished it last night and saved it. But now when I wanted to show Johan my space facts, the whole presentation is just gone! It says the file is corrupted and cannot be opened.”

“Do you have a backup?” asked Teacher Lisa carefully.

“A what?” Ella looked at her in confusion.

“A backup, or backup copy as it’s also called. An extra copy of your work that you’ve saved somewhere else.”

Ella shook her head. “No, I’ve only saved it once, on the tablet.”

Teacher Lisa nodded understandingly. “I think this is a good opportunity for all of us to learn about something very important – backups. Can you manage for a while while I gather the class for a short lesson?”

Ella nodded, still with tears in her eyes.

Teacher Lisa gathered all the children and used Ella’s situation as a starting point for today’s spontaneous lesson.

“Digital files, such as documents, images, and presentations, can sometimes disappear or become damaged for various reasons,” she explained. “It could be technical errors, accidental deletion, or as we talked about earlier – ransomware attacks. That’s why it’s so important to have backups.”

“What is a backup?” asked Sofia.

“A backup is an extra copy of your important files that you save in a different place than the original,” answered Teacher Lisa. “Think of it as having a spare key to your house, hidden in a safe place. If you lose your main key, you still have a way to get in.”

Teacher Lisa took out a large piece of paper and wrote: “3-2-1 rule for backups”. The children looked at it curiously.

“This rule is very easy to remember, and it helps you protect your important files,” she explained as she wrote:

3-2-1 Rule:

• 3 copies total of your important files
• 2 different storage types
• 1 copy in another location

“Let me explain this with an example,” continued Teacher Lisa. “Let’s say you’ve written an important story. According to the 3-2-1 rule, you should have:

1. The original file on your computer or tablet
2. A copy saved on, for example, a USB drive
3. A third copy saved in ‘the cloud’, such as Google Drive or OneDrive”

“But we’re just kids,” protested Johan. “How are we supposed to keep track of so many copies?”

“It doesn’t have to be complicated,” said Teacher Lisa reassuringly. “For you, it might be enough to have two copies – one on your tablet or computer, and one in the cloud, which updates automatically. The important thing is that you don’t have all your eggs in one basket, as the saying goes.”

“I usually email important assignments to myself,” said Li. “Is that a backup?”

“That’s actually a good start!” said Teacher Lisa. “You’re then creating an extra copy in your email account, which is in a different place than your computer. But for larger files or many pictures, cloud storage is usually better.”

“My dad uses something called ‘automatic backup’,” said Sofia. “His phone copies all pictures to the cloud every night, completely by itself.”

“Excellent example!” said Teacher Lisa enthusiastically. “Automatic backup is perfect, because you don’t need to remember to do it manually. Your tablets can actually be set up to do this automatically with schoolwork.”

Ella, who had been listening attentively, raised her hand. “But if I had had a backup, how would I have gotten my presentation back?”

“Then you could simply have opened the backed-up version instead,” explained Teacher Lisa. “If you had it saved in Google Drive, for example, you could have logged in there from any device and opened it.”

Teacher Lisa then demonstrated on the big screen how to set up automatic backup on different devices and how to use cloud services to safely save files.

“There’s another important thing to consider,” she added. “It’s good to regularly check that the backups actually work. It doesn’t help to have a backup if it can’t be used when you need it.”

She illustrated this by telling a story about a business leader who thought everything was backed up, but when a fire destroyed the offices, they discovered that the backup had not been working for months.

“So, who wants to help Ella now?” asked Teacher Lisa. “We need to try to recreate her presentation about space for tomorrow.”

Several hands flew into the air.

“I have information about planets!” said Johan.

“And I have pictures of stars we can use,” offered Sofia.

“I know! We can share a document in the cloud so we can all work on it at the same time!” suggested Li.

Teacher Lisa smiled. “That’s an excellent idea, Li! And it actually shows another advantage of cloud storage – collaboration. When files are saved in the cloud, several people can work on them simultaneously.”

During the afternoon, the class worked together on a shared presentation to help Ella. They found facts, pictures, and even some short videos about space. To Ella’s surprise, the new presentation was even better than her original.

Before the school day was over, Teacher Lisa had a surprise.

“I talked to IT manager Stefan during lunch, and he actually managed to recover part of your original presentation from an automatic backup that is made on the school’s servers every week. It was an older version, but some of your pictures and facts were still there.”

Ella beamed with joy. “So there was a backup after all? Why didn’t I know about that?”

“The school makes backups of all students’ work as an extra precaution, but that doesn’t replace making your own backups. Now you can combine what Stefan recovered with the new stuff we’ve created together.”

When Ella got home that evening, she eagerly told her mother about the day’s events and lessons.

“So now I’ll always make backups of everything important,” she concluded firmly. “Teacher Lisa said it’s like having insurance – you hope you never need to use it, but you’re so glad you have it if something goes wrong.”

“That’s a good analogy,” said her mother. “You know, I should actually get better at it myself. I have so many important family photos on my phone that I would be devastated to lose.”

“I can teach you!” said Ella proudly. “Teacher Lisa showed us several ways to make backups. And do you know what the best part is? If we set up automatic backup, we don’t even need to remember to do it – it happens all by itself!”

Together, Ella and her mother sat down at the family computer and set up automatic backup for both her mother’s phone and Ella’s schoolwork. They also decided to buy an external hard drive to follow the 3-2-1 rule for the most important files and family photographs.

Before Ella fell asleep that night, she looked at her now completed space project, safely saved on the tablet, in the cloud, and on the family’s new external hard drive.

“Next time internet villains try to take my files, they’ll be disappointed,” she whispered contentedly to herself. “Because I have backups everywhere!”

With that thought, she fell asleep soundly, well aware that her digital treasures were now properly protected, no matter what might happen.