Technology and the Need for Integration in Public Education

Abstract:

Cybersecurity and digital literacy are pressing issues among Canadian citizens, yet formal education does not provide today’s students with the necessary knowledge and skills needed to adapt to these challenging issues within the physical and digital labor-market. Canada’s current education systems do not highlight the importance of these respective fields, aside from using technology for learning management systems and alternative methods of assignment completion. Educators are not properly trained to integrate technology into the compulsory courses within public education, to better prepare their learners in these topics and Canada’s digital economy. ICTC addresses these gaps in education and training through cross-Canadian educational programming in digital literacy and competency, cybersecurity and coding which is bridged with Canada’s provincially regulated K-12 curriculum guidelines. After analyzing Canada’s provincial education, it is apparent that there are gaps in learning related to technology, as well as inconsistent educational outcomes that do not adequately represent the current Canadian and global economies.

Presently only New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and British Columbia offer curriculum guidelines for cybersecurity, computer programming, and digital literacy. The remaining provinces do not address these skills in their curriculum guidelines. Moreover, certain courses across some provinces not being updated since the 1990’s. The three territories respectfully take curriculum strands from other provinces and use them as their foundation in education. Yukon uses all British Columbia curriculum. Northwest Territories and Nunavut respectfully use a hybrid of Alberta and Saskatchewan curriculum as their foundation of learning. Education that is provincially regulated does not allow for consistency across the country’s educational outcomes and what Canada’s students will achieve – especially when curriculum outcomes have not been updated to reflect present day society. Through this, ICTC has aligned Canada’s provincially regulated curriculum and created opportunities for focused education in the realm of technology to better serve Canada’s present learners and teachers, while addressing inequalities and applicability within curriculum strands and outcomes across the country. As a result, lessons, units, and formal assessment strategies, have been created to benefit students and teachers in this interdisciplinary, cross-curricular, practice - as well as meeting their compulsory education requirements and developing skills and literacy in cyber education. Teachers can access these lessons and units through ICTC’s website, as well as receive professional development regarding the assessment and implementation of these offerings from ICTC’s education coordinators, whose combines experience exceeds 50 years of teaching in public, private, international, and Indigenous schools.

We encourage you to take this opportunity that will benefit students and educators and will bridge the learning and curriculum gaps in Canadian education to better reflect the ever-changing public, social, and career landscape that all citizens are apart of. Students are the future, and we at ICTC strive to ensure their futures are bright and prosperous.

Thank you for your consideration.

Eric Morettin

Education Coordinator (Western Canada)

Pronouns: He/Him/His

Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC)

e.morettin@ictc-ctic.ca

www.ictc-ctic.ca | @ICTC_CTIC | ICTC Linkedin | ICTC Facebook

Shaping Canada’s digital future | Façonner l’avenir numérique du Canada

I respectfully acknowledge that ICTC (Vancouver) is in the ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh People.

Traditional public education has served all pupils (past, present, and future) in means of knowledge and skills acquisition needed inorder to become a porductive member of their country or region’s respective economy. Although as society has changed and eveloved through history, the public education model has taken a back-seat in regards to its rate of change to reflect the modern needs of our society (Boyce, 2019). Specifically the need for cybersecurity education and skills training within public education is needed to better prepare students for the society they live, and will work, in. This paper focuses on the need for cybersecurity and principles of coding in public education, educational offerings that integrate these principles with provincially regulated Canadian curriculum, and how the offerings will benefit teachers and students moving forward. Principles of the K-12 education system have been upheld throughout history to reflect the times at hand, although present education is not reflective of present day society. Society is rapidly changing and education is left playing catch-up and graduating students with skills that reflect workforces and skillsets of the last generation.

As society and the modern work-force transition to embrace a stronger digital presence, the need to educate and prepare today’s students for the world they will enter after secondary education is absolutely necessary. Current students of the K-12 education system have stated school only taught “very basic computing skills, […] didn’t prepare them with the technology skills they needed for their planned careers. […] consider learning new digital skills essential to future career options” (Gupta 2023). The need for cybersecurity education, and a stronger focus on digital literacy and skills, are inherent to the success of students in their years of formal education as it serves as invaluable skills to navigate their economic and social lives. The need for cybersecurity education is rooted in personal safety, protection of personal information, and digital literacy and competency to benefit educators and learners for the following reasons; “[o]ne in three education devices contains sensitive data […] education sectors are the most likely to admit security weaknesses. 44% of IT managers in the education sector experienced a ransomware attack. This is the highest level of attack compared to a variety of other industries […] 87% of educational establishments have experienced at least one attack […] the education sector is one of the least secure, and schools are the second most lucrative target for ransomware. (Intel, n.d.) With these alarming statistics, and the push for electronic devices as educational tools in education, the importance of cybersecurity education and digital literacy is unparalleled for students, educators, and administrators. Arguments will be raised regarding not having enough time to teach the subject on top of the core subjects, inability and resilience of integration to the teacher’s current practice, or not possessing the adequate skill to be a subject master for (Synopsys 2016). With the alarming statistics, we ask for solutions and immediacy in a shift in education. Although a shift does not come overnight.

Education is a vast entity with various moving parts, that hinder its ability to make radically positive changes to the current model of education (in content and delivery), even if the need for change is necessary, and the results of change will immediately benefit educators and learners. Curriculum change and redesign is necessary and requires regular conversations between teachers at various grades and administrators to evolve the curriculum to better reflect the needs of society, collaboration between colleagues in understanding the school’s needs and curriculum focus while identifying how these needs can be met, as well as constant and ongoing evaluation and revision of current practices between educator, administration, and their districts (Jorgenson 2006). The aforementioned changes also need to be met in tandem with proper teacher training to adopt these new practices. The technology streams are very specialized studies in education that require explicit training for teachers to become subject experts for their students and in their own professional practice. Staple core subjects such as math and the arts were practiced long before the digital age. With the rising and rapidly changing digital age and economy, and the lack of knowledge in understanding these principles in great depth, the need for cybersecurity education is unparalleled; “[t]eachers lack knowledge and expertise regarding cyberspace. Schools and government ministries may lack resources and facilities to implement cybersecurity education. The speed of technological change results in new risks, requiring new solutions. Teachers may face problems in developing their knowledge of the latest technology and thus ensuring students are safe” (D. Miles, Second Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit (WCS), Youth Protection: Digital Citizenship- Principles and New Recourses, 2011.) A solution to the gaps in cybersecurity education lies in reshaping and rethinking education practices and methodology to normalize digital literacy within existing K-12 curriculum through cross-curricular learning and providing adequate training to educators.

The Information Communication Technology Council (ICTC) has bridged these missing links in cybersecurity and ICT, through cross-curricular learning with Canada’s provincially regulated K-12 educational outcomes. Learning and educational outcomes have been changing focus from testing in single subjects, to project-based learning that combines multiple course competencies together; cross-curricular learning. An example of this would be, but is not limited to, teaching math, social sciences, and the arts in one project or lesson. Cross-curricular learning also increases neuroplasticity in students, develops critical thinking skills and real-world problem solving, and allows for students to represent their learning through various disciplines (Chaingpradit 2022). Cross-curricular learning is student focused, although it is not adopted by all educators to prepare students with the skills to match society outside of formal education. Public education models, practices, and philosophies do not reflect the changing needs of society, the multiple needs and learning styles between students, and is rooted in traditional models of assessment that do not allow for student voice, choice, and autonomy of learning (Boyce 2019).

ICTC’s team of education coordinators are former Canadian public-school educators, whose classroom education experience exceeds 40 years of public, private, first nations, and international education. The team has designed resources for teachers that educate, and deliver, ICT and cybersecurity education to students through compulsory K-12 subjects and courses; in engaging cross-curricular approaches. The resources are aligned with each of Canada’s provincially regulated curriculum guidelines, so teachers are able to appropriately use the resources in their practice, while meeting curriculum standards upon formal assessment; alleviating educators from the necessary work of adding new concepts to their current practice, while ensuring relevancy and alignment to provincial curriculum learning goals. The lessons and units are offered free of charge to educators, designed by teachers to benefit established and new teachers through a ‘plug-in and play’ model, aligned to all provincial and territorial curriculum with their respective outcomes (based on the assignment), and teacher training is offered during mandatory professional development days. By aligning and mapping Canada’s provincial curriculum to allow for cybersecurity education to coexist with compulsory education strands, ICTC has become aware of the challenges regarding provincially regulated curriculum and its varying outcomes.

Through ICTC’s research, this approach to integrating cybersecurity education was taken due to how much Canada’s provincial curriculum differed between provinces. The differences have also created numerous challenges aside from cybersecurity integration and education. Primarily, Canada’s provincial educational outcomes are not succinct with each other upon the completion of grade 12. The only way to achieve this would be reforming Canada’s provincially regulated curriculum to a common core model, with a re-write to ensure all curriculum properly reflects present society. Due to the rate of change within education models and curriculum, it will be a long time before we see this come to life. Although the rising need for cybersecurity education will force education to adopt it as standard practice by means of the system’s inherent flaws of privacy protection and vulnerability to cyberattacks. There has been a long call for the implementation of cybersecurity education in formal K-12 curriculum, and the need is only becoming more apparent with the number of cybersecurity attacks that affect all levels of public education, from students to educators, and super intendants.

Going forward in addressing cybersecurity education and training, ICTC calls on the following amendments to occur in order to address the national crisis:

Updating Curriculum standards across the country to include more similarities between subject strands and taught content, that offer easier integration of technology and cybersecurity to Canada’s provincial education system.
Work to create, and standardize, cybersecurity education across the nation’s K-12 education system, using New Brunswick and British Columbia’s current cybersecurity education and computer programming curriculum as a foundation to build upon.
Call to action for provinces to update curriculums that have not been updated within the last 15 years.
Annual and Semi-Annual connection with provincial curriculum developers and stakeholders to showcase cross-curricular lesson and unit plans that emphasize the integration of cybersecurity and technology with the provincial K-12 education system, that reflect the needs and challenges within society’s digital landscapes.
Offer these unit and lesson plans to educators across the country while offering professional development workshops that focus on integration of these subjects and concepts, and how they meet their required learning and assessment targets.

ICTC’s education coordinators, who combine 40+ years of classroom experience, believe this model will make the largest impact as it works at the practical, real-world, teacher level that is also designed by teachers, for teachers to use immediately in their practice, with immediate results. A top-down approach when implementing content is generally dismissed, ignored, or forgotten as the practices may not align with the teacher’s long-range plans, they may feel disingenuous, or may not feel supported when trying to integrate. With rapidly changing technologies and the lack of education and knowledge surrounding them, previous practices and digital competency and skills are only so relevant as they once were. If strands like math and language arts are heavily emphasized, then we must put the same emphasis on cybersecurity education to ensure our students are prepared for the world outside formal schooling and to ensure their safety while using the tools necessary for their learning, and career paths that reflect the present and future; not the past.

Works Cited

Boyce, P. (2019, August 18). Schools are outdated. it's time for reform: Paul Boyce. FEE Freeman Article. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://fee.org/articles/schools-are-outdated-its-time-for-reform/

Gupta S. (2023, January 23) Study: Gen Z does not feel prepared for success in a Digital World. (n.d.). Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://www.fastcompany.com/90839901/dell-study-gen-z-success-in-digital-world

Intel (n.d.) Cybersecurity in Education. Retrieved February 15 2023, from https://www.intel.ca/content/www/ca/en/education/it-in-education/cyber-security.html#:~:text=Why%20Is%20Cybersecurity%20Important%20in,minors%20in%20K%E2%80%9312%20institutions.

Synopsys Editorial Team (2016, October 23) Why Cybersecurity Isn’t Taught in Schools. Retrieved February 4 2023, from https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/software-security/cyber-security-education/

Jorgenson O. (2006) Why Curriculum Change is Difficult and Necessary. Retrieved February 6 2023, from https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/software-security/cyber-security-education/

Chaingpradit L. (2022, May 17) The Benefits of Cross-Curricular Instruction. Retrieved February 9 2023, From https://stemsports.com/the-benefits-of-cross-curricular-instruction/

Boyce P. (2019, August 18) Schools re Outdated. It’s Time for Reform. Retrieved February 18 2023, from https://fee.org/articles/schools-are-outdated-its-time-for-reform/