South Florida teachers participated in a cybersecurity training today. Not only for their own interest, but also to extend the acquired knowledge to their students and protect them.
25 high school teachers signed up for this summer program. They say that every day they see how their students connect and take risks.
This activity was designed by technology teacher Leonardo Gonzáles for his high school students to understand how cybersecurity works.
“They pretend to be computers, to be messages that go through the Internet, also hackers, people who also interrupt them and they do that physically to understand the concept and then we do it on the computer.”
The exercise was repeated by some 25 teachers from South Florida who today participated in a cyber-education workshop at FIU.
Dr. Alexander Pérez-Pons, from the FIU College of Engineering says:,
“If we can educate them, give that basic information to their students to protect them. From the point of social networks of all the resources that exist online”.
Dr. Pérez-Pons, who was in charge of the gen-cyber seminar of the National Science Foundation, points out that adolescents are too exposed to the web. According to a 2022 study, among young people between the ages of 13 and 17, 95% have access to smartphones, 90% to computers, and 80% to game consoles. In addition, 97 percent use the internet on a daily basis. And among Hispanics, 55 percent are constantly online. And that increases the risks. It is a very big risk, many of the students, the boys, are very affected by what other people say”.
The seminar is offered just before the law that requires instruction on the harmful effects of social media in the classroom goes into effect.
Among the most popular is YouTube, followed by TikTok and Instagram in third place.
