Following a year-long design process, we’re very excited to have launched our new, cybersecurity-focused student program, Supercyber.
It was purposefully designed to engage students who weren’t already interested or familiar with cybersecurity, something that sets it apart from existing programs. It was developed with the desire to increase cybersecurity uptake at an early age to help address the increasing labour gap that is endemic to the macroenvironment in the tech space.
Rather than teaching the technical skills common to the industry, the Supercyber program aims to build an understanding of the importance of cybersecurity, its relevance at different operational scales and the soft/enterprise skills required to flourish.
It achieves all this whilst remaining focused on the student experience, with an activity-centric approach taken throughout the development cycle. The rotations are hands-on, champion collaboration and are gamified to encourage student engagement.
The program begins at the individual level, with students encouraged to think critically about their own cyber hygiene practices. It goes on to explore practices at a team level as students consider questions like how to balance accessibility and security within a workspace.
The day-long program finishes with a look at cybersecurity at an organisational and then national level, as students put to practice the skills they’ve acquired throughout the day to navigate a real-world simulation under the guise of a choose-your-own-adventure game.
As is the nature of programs at MTS, the development process was and remains to be, iterative. We used prototypes for program rotations this term - from office floor plans constructed from cardboard and 3D prints to paper game boards and collateral.
Using prototypes retains the flexibility to adjust activities before producing refined, finished products. Qualitative feedback obtained from students has been invaluable to this process and has helped guide the journey towards a final deliverable for Term 3.
Student feedback for Supercyber during this period has been overwhelmingly positive. 87.46% of students felt that the program met its learning intentions, and 87.65% believed technology helped to facilitate their learning. In regards to collaboration, 88.83% of students felt that they were able to work together with other students by the end of the day.
This project marks a major milestone for MTS as the development for Supercyber took place over an entire year - the longest development cycle for a program yet!
We would like to thank partner schools Brentwood Secondary College and Mount Waverley Secondary College for being a part of its first deliveries.
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