Teacher Education and Cyber Security

This study states that in teacher education programs, preservice teachers learn about strategies to appropriately integrate computer-related and Internet-capable technologies into instructional settings to improve student learning. Many presume that preservice teachers have the knowledge to competently model and teach issues of safety when working with these devices as well. This study investigated the current knowledge and understandings preservice teachers have about cyberethics, cybersafety, and cybersecurity (C3) topics and their beliefs about their ability to teach them. The researchers conducted a survey with 318 preservice teachers asking them to rate their ability to model or teach 75 C3 topics. The results indicated that the respondents were not prepared to model or teach C3 topics.

Pusey, P., & Sadera, W. A. (2012). Cyberethics, cybersafety, and cybersecurity: Preservice teacher Knowledge, preparedness, and the need for teacher education to make a difference. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 28(2). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ960154.pdf

Cyber Technology and Cheating in Schools

According to an online survey administered by McAfee, over half of the U.S. teens who responded state that they have seen or heard of another student using technology to cheat in school. A third of respondents also stated they used tech devices to cheat in school. Additionally, a third of U.S. teens surveyed reported having experienced cyberbullying and having access to banned content at school. Slightly less than half of the U.S. teen respondents stated that they receive regular guidelines from their schools on cybersecurity, while a third of the U.S. teen respondents stated that they’ve gotten around these restrictions to access banned content. Gary Davis, McAfee’s chief consumer security evangelist, suggests that in order to combat these trends, it is important to educate children on safe online habits, starting at early ages.

McAfee (2017). McAfee teens and cyber security survey. Santa Clara, CA: McAfee. https://www.denverpost.com/2017/08/06/us-teens-electronics-cheat/