Kilgore College will host the KC GenCyber Teacher Institute next summer thanks to a $132,274 grant from GenCyber.
The GenCyber program funds summer camps across the country, and is financially supported by the National Security Agency, the National Science Foundation and other federal partners.
The workshop will teach 30 middle school and high school teachers from the East Texas area how to incorporate fundamental cybersecurity concepts into their lesson plans and ignite an interest in their students about the growing cybersecurity field.
The program is designed to help teachers in a variety of disciplines to become comfortable with cybersecurity principles and to understand the need for cybersecurity workers today.
Teachers will be paid a stipend to participate in 32.5 hours of in-person, hands-on training during a weeklong workshop, scheduled for June 24-28, 2024 – as well as an additional 24 hours of pre- and post-camp activities.
Learning modules will include basic cybersecurity concepts of confidentiality, integrity and availability; cybersecurity career exploration; ethics in cybersecurity; and practical applications for teaching cybersecurity concepts to middle school and high school students.
Participants will each leave the workshop with three customized lesson plans that can be used with students during the following academic year, and a GenCyber Cybersecurity Teaching Kit, which includes items such as a set of Yubikeys, classroom games, posters, books, an SSD hard drive loaded with teaching resources and co-branded GenCyber items such as a t-shirt and tote bag.
The KC GenCyber Teacher Workshop is being provided as a joint effort between the Computer and Information Technology department and the Child Development/Education department at KC.
The project team at KC includes Dr. Ginger Dennis, department chair of Business and Information Technology, as the Program Director; Danny Darden, associate professor of Computer and Information Technology, as the Lead Instructor; and Karen Morris, program coordinator and instructor of Child Development/Education, as the K-12 Pedagogical Expert.
More information or to apply for the GenCyber Institute at KC, visit www.kilgore.edu/gencyber.