The Problem

While many educators instruct their pupils on fundamental ideas like the limitations of what they can and cannot access online, too few teachers grasp the notion of “Cyber Hygiene," and don’t know how to successfully educate their students about internet safety.

The difficulty we confront is, although there is a growth in student usage of the internet in the school system, how will teachers effectively incorporate online safety through cyber hygiene principles to kids and aid them long term? That's where we come in. We are striving to teach youngsters key cyber hygiene habits and concepts at a stage where they will be most likely to absorb and retain that knowledge.

Cyber hygiene is key to internet safety and knowing the value of cyber hygiene. We believe that by studying cyber hygiene at an early age, children will be able to retain and utilize the information now and later in life.

Our Mission

We had to come up with a concept that would appeal to a particular group of people while also being enjoyable for everyone. We conducted an online poll and gathered a small sample of responses in person. The majority of respondents were between the ages of 15 and 22, and to our astonishment, many of them had never heard of or even considered cyber hygiene. With that in mind, we discussed a few options ranging from talk seminars to mobile apps. However, we decided on a bus.

We are trying to impart important cyber hygiene lessons to high school students through the bus at a time when they can understand and remember them. Instructing individuals on how to use the Internet safely in a connected society is getting harder. Our product is intended to teach these young adults good internet hygiene etiquette so they may establish these behaviors at an instructive age but also to make it an enjoyable experience.

Lack of understanding about cyber hygiene leads to behaviors and practices such as using weak passwords and exposing personal information insecurely. Our hypothesis is that teaching proper cyber hygiene practices at the most vital stage of young adults will allow these students to carry this information far easier in the future.

In an increasingly connected society, people are having increased difficulties learning how to defend themselves online. Although external forces pose the greatest threat, individuals must learn how to properly defend themselves against those who would abuse their trust.

In order for this issue to be solved, we need to introduce the idea of learning cyber hygiene practices as a natural part of learning about the world. Doing so in a school setting, such as a school district, will allow children to learn these concepts and teachers to introduce these ideas more easily in a controlled setting.

According to our research, there aren't many school-sponsored initiatives aimed at teaching high school students about cyber hygiene, much less on a platform with engaging games, activities, and hands-on learning.

The Design Thinking Process

When we first created our prototype, we began looking for a way to introduce cyber hygiene to elderly people. This was due to the various interviews we conducted with individuals on their knowledge of cyber-hygiene. Unfortunately, we discovered that teaching an older generation may be more difficult than we had imagined it to be. This then led us to our final decision which we thought to help young adults in high school. We entirely flipped our original hypothesis and came to the conclusion that it would be more useful to assist young adults in developing excellent cyber-hygiene practices at an age where information will stick. Hence, even though they are a different generation, we are still assisting individuals.

Our goal became how to teach high school students cyber-hygiene habits in a pleasant and participatory way. We hope that by teaching these activities in a way that young adults will find intriguing and engaging, they will carry this knowledge with them into adulthood. We opted to concentrate on adolescents growing up in a connected, expanding environment to better prepare them for people who could want to harm them online.

Building Empathy

For our product, we first conducted interviews with IT specialists and people in general to learn what they consider to be cyber hygiene. Our interviews revealed that very few people were familiar with the term "cyber hygiene," which they compare with cyber security. We came to the conclusion that teaching people about cyber hygiene at a youthful age would be simpler as a result of our discussions and research. We also came to the conclusion that it would be challenging to try to teach cyber hygiene to adults and elderly people because they would either not comprehend or not fully accept the concepts. Realizing this, we set out to create a product that can instruct kids about cyber hygiene in a fun and engaging way.

As our first test market for our product, we intend to collaborate with the Virginia Board of Education and the Virginia school districts. If we are successful, we'll base our findings on one school district and, if our clients are satisfied, expand to more districts with our product. In the hope of going further and teaching in other states in the near future. When we conducted our initial round of interviews, the concept of cyber hygiene was not well-known or highly respected. Instead of cyber-hygiene, most participants were more familiar with the word cybersecurity. Through this device, we hope to introduce younger computer users to the idea of cyber-hygiene, which will eventually become more popular.

Bringing Cyber Hygiene To You!

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