It’s been quiet over here at profection.net but for good reasons. I had the opportunity to teach 150 elementary school students about online safety and privacy at one of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s thriving schools. I presented to six classrooms of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders. We learned that “online friends are not the same as real friends” with a little help from Garfield. Lots of great questions (kids say the darndest things…) and it was evident that these children, even at 7 years old, are fully immersed in a digital world and everything that comes with the territory.
The awareness didn’t end there… I was honored to be invited to talk about my career in Information Security with 100 more 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students during Career Day. The audience was a bit tougher 🙂 More great questions and discussion – we talked about hackers, video games, and even the dark web (didn’t expect that). I’m not sure if I put everyone to sleep or inspired the next generation of (ethical) hackers but it was fun!
So that was last week. 3 days, 250 students, and tons of security and privacy awareness. The students were awesome – attentive, engaged, and genuinely curious about real issues that they deal with on a daily basis. I can only hope that they learned something worthy of sharing with friends and family. I know I learned a few things from them.
#iamcybersafe
This is great news. Excited to see kids getting relevant information that they can put to use immediately. Ethical hacking sounds so cool! My kids went to a session with the Girl Scouts this winter on just that.
This is great. Can’t do this often enough. Just as important to be talking to high schoolers, too. I’ve seen discussions with parents where the so called experts were school employees who knew less about the common apps and their risks than I did. Need pros like you to be talking about this!