Giving Compass' Take:

• Lauren Barack explains the need to teach cybersecurity in U.S. classrooms as an integral part of the curriculum, not a brief overview. 

• How can funders help educators to shift the curriculum to reflect this need? What support do teachers need in order to understand this content themselves? 

• Learn about cybersecurity threats to school districts. 

As the ed tech coordinator and mobile integration specialist of Eanes Independent School District in Austin, Texas, cybersecurity is very much top of mind for Brianna Hodges. While topics including cyber safety and student privacy have always played roles in the district, the technology students now use regularly in the 1:1 district has changed.

That’s why Hodges believe it’s crucial students are taught to think more about how they’re engaging with technology in their lives. And she knows that requires more than just giving children a quick lesson once a year.

Most students in the U.S. now have access to computers in their homes — up to 94% of children ages 3 to 18 as of 2015 do, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, which also notes 61% of this population has online access as well. This makes knowing how to safely navigate the internet even more crucial.

Hodges said even adults can make mistakes when they quickly jump onto their devices, download an app, and agree to the terms and conditions without going through the fine print and knowing what they’ve consented to follow.

That’s exactly what she hopes to encourage teachers to think about, as well as what she expects they’ll teach their students, when Eanes ISD launches its new cybersecurity program during the 2019-20 school year. Some of the lessons are already at play, such as what middle school kids are taught during a robotics class at West Ridge Middle School, where Jason Spodick encourages them to think about privacy and drone laws, Hodges said.

Bringing a quadcopter into the classroom, Spodick presses his students to consider camera drones in particular. While they may be fun to play with in a backyard, a neighbor may have a different opinion if one flies across the fence and peers into their home.

Read the full article about the need to teach cybersecurity by Lauren Barack at Education Dive.