The Texas A&M Cybersecurity Center held the inaugural GenCyber Teach the Teachers camp June 19-23. The GenCyber program sponsors summer camps across the nation designed for elementary, middle and high school teachers that focus on engaging learners with sound cybersecurity principles and teaching techniques.
During the camp, Dr. Daniel Ragsdale, director, and Dr. Robert “Trez” Jones, assistant director of the Cybersecurity Center, taught the principles of cybersecurity to 20 teachers from Texas.
The goals of the program are to increase diversity and interest in cybersecurity and careers in the cybersecurity workforce of the nation and improve teaching methods for delivering cybersecurity content in K-12 computer science curricula.
“This is the best professional training I have ever been to,” said Kyle Kettler, Alvin Independent School District career and technical education teacher. “As odd as it seems in this day and age, cybersecurity is not as well known or established in IT education as other fields. Security always seems to find its way as a subtopic or part of IT curriculum, but it is rarely the focus. I think these camps can go a long way to identify the need for and stimulate the interest in cybersecurity professions.”
The camp, sponsored through the National Security Agency and the National Science Foundation, was the first of its kind to be held in Texas.
“I feel our first teacher training camp was an incredible success and am very pleased we were able to offer this in the hopes that teachers will be able to provide better educational opportunities to meet the needs of our state and national security interests,” Jones said.
Texas A&M will host its second GenCyber Teach the Teachers Camp in August. For more information visit https://www.gen-cyber.com/.