As a step towards improving cyber awareness among the school community and to have an appropriate mechanism to deal with cyber issues (if any) that arise, a CYBER CONGRESS committee had been formed in the school. This committee comprises of Academic Leadership Team members, members of Admin team, teachers from PYP and Senior School. The committee also includes student representatives from Grade 7 onwards where I was selected as one of the representatives from Grade 11 and 12.
We, The Cyber Congress Committee had undergone a one-day training conducted by Mr Rakshit Tandon. This training equipped the members to deal with cyber issues appropriately.
I was very keen to do something for the social issues in which cyber issues was one among them. Thus getting an opportunity like this was like support or “Go Ahead” signal for me to actually be able to do something for it.
So, the first step we took to have a positive cyber environment in school was the google form sent to all students in Grade 5 and above, which has questions regarding the use of the internet by the students and any of the cyber issues they have faced or seen others facing them. After the form is filled, each grade’s representative made presentations for cyber safety on social networking sites and others places, which in my case was then presented on 10th and 18th of January with a hands-on session with the students.
Learning outcome 1 – Identify own strength and develop areas of growth
Most of the people in my circle say that I was good at helping others and I have a caring nature which somewhere makes me feel good that I have been given the responsibility to look after my grade mate’s cyber safety. Also, having good technical or computer skills have helped us while making the presentation for the session which included images and small texts.
But having the above things as my strength, I had a weakness which was somewhere a major one that is that I was not much of a socially active person. I do not have an account on either Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat etc. These are the sites that we actually discussed with Rakshit Tandon. So if someone actually has an issue on any of these sites, I would not be able to help them much which makes me feel sad. However, there are ways in which I can help them so choosing this way I would be able to tackle my weakness. I would also try to become more active or at least create an account on this sites in case if there is a need for it.
I think that to develop yourself, you first need to shortlist your weaknesses and strengths and then decide upon working on your weaknesses and strengthing your strengths. By doing so, you can not only lead yourself in the direction of attaining desired results but also live life satisfyingly and successfully; whereas those who don’t pay attention to their fallibility fall in disgrace and face dismays.
Therefore, I identified my weakness and immediately decided to work on it so that I am able to help people who face issues with cyber.
Learning outcome 2 – Demonstrating that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.
The most difficult challenges that I had faced during the whole cybersecurity sessions and the presentation was my introvert nature and my lack of knowledge about the social sites. As I am an introvert person, I don’t like to socialise much neither do I like to give presentations alone about topics which I am not much aware of. However, this time, I had to do the things which I don’t like which was kind of a challenge to me because I was doing something which I neither like to do nor I wanted to do it.
But alas, my passion and aim to help aware people about cybersecurity were bigger than this challenge. Thus, first for getting the forms filled by all the classmates, I kept reminding them to fill the form increasing my communication with them. Then as I had to present alone, I planned and prepared for the presentation before my final run which made it easy for me to present it.
I have presented alone before, but the subject of it was known to me making me confident while presenting while in this case, the subject included the use of social sites which I am not much aware of, thereby making me less confident and it being a challenge for me.
Undertaking this kind of challenge is just another step or way of improving myself. Because in future I can be asked to make presentations on topics which I am not much familiar and also be directed to communicate with people more on regular basis. So getting an opportunity to overcome this challenge was an opportunity for me to see what type of situations can come in near future.
Undertaking new challenges is important for human life as it helps to develop new skills which in turn is also very important for our self-esteem and success. The above challenge has helped me to improve my communication skills and research skills while actually preparing the presentation.
Learning outcome 3 – Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
In this activity, planning was required while making the presentation. To make it content wealthy as well as fun for my classmates, planning in some way was required.
We as cyber congress had to make sure that the presentation does not contain more text because it is highly possible that the students will get bored. So, we together planned to add more of pictures with directions on how to be safe on the net on the picture itself, as shown in the pic below.
Doing this however not difficult. I enjoyed while making the presentation as I like things to be put up in an easy and organised way, which we did. We also included some videos and facts in the presentation to show the seriousness and the need for cyber safety.
Therefore, including the videos, facts, text and images in an interesting way made the presentation more appealing to the audience making it easier for me to deliver the information to the audience while presenting, in all yielding a good quality of result at the end.
The skills I learned were Research skills ( Planning the presentation ), Self – management skills ( Organising the text ) and Communication skills ( Coordinating with other members while making the presentation ).
Developing all the above skills is going to help me in my future because the above skills are the basic skills needed by anyone to pursue success in his/her life.
It is very crucial to know how to plan and initiate because it helps to be more productive, manage time in a better way giving fewer chances of stress, and less chance of procrastination, therefore, in all leading to a good quality result in the end which everyone wants.
Learning outcome 5 – Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.
Having a team of around 20 members, including teachers and students for the cybersecurity of grade 11 and 12 required us to work collaboratively so that the presentation is well framed and includes all the necessary information needed to be delivered. I always enjoy working in teams as it finishes the work faster as everyone is allocated tasks which they are able to do. Similarly, I was given the task to add information about WhatsApp, truecaller, and Youtube.
Our team had members who were very dedicated about the aim behind this Congress, thus making it easy for me to work in the group and complete the task given in the allocated deadline.
Teamwork was important in this activity due to the aim of the presentation. Our purpose of making people aware of the cyber issues and how to stay safe on the net, made it necessary for us to cooperate and include all the correct, necessary and important directions regarding the same.
It is important to collaborate with others in order to learn something new and make your communication and social skills efficient, which I learned by working in this team.
Learning outcome 6, Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
So the global issue, we were looking was the increasing cyber crimes all over the globe. With an increase in the digital platform all around the globe, there is an increase in issues like cyberbullying, mobile payment and banking hacks. Cyberbullying is one of the famous and most reported cases of cyber issues which is because of the extensive use of social media by ages under 18. It was also found that due to cyber issues like bullying, there have been clear deaths of teenage kids all over the globe.
As per UNICEF – ” In India 50 lakh Facebook users are 13 – 17 years old “. Talking about the age mentioned above; this is the age where our body grows both mentally and physically, therefore making it likely that our actions may be wrong which would end us up in severe trouble which we are not aware of.
So to help build a positive digital footprint, the first step we took was aware the students of our school on how to be safe and away from cyber issues. Having done something for a global issue which is so severe, it makes me feel good that I was able to contribute and was able to help people to be safe while they take a step in the digital platform.
The world is getting interconnected inclusively, and in this era, we the youngsters have to learn about engaging ourselves in a course of actions that might offer empathy to animals and people belonging to different nations, cultures, races and religions. Knowing above about the global issues would help us to understand the place we live in, in a better way, therefore, making it likely for us to take actions which are in the cause of the issue. Doing all this would help us to make this world a better place for a diverse and globalized society where people are safe to live and have the opportunity to enjoy the life.
Learning outcome 7 – Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.
To make our classmates get a better view of the seriousness of the issue and to make them have a practical look on how to be safe on the net, we had thought to make a fake account on the social networking sites and similarly do some cybercrime in order to make it look real.
However, this was against out ethics and morals and so was eliminated immediately after the thought came.
This ethical issue was affecting us directly as we were directly involved in the planning of the same. This made us feel uncomfortable as we were doing something, which we as an individual would never do in our life.
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So in all, I would like to conclude that it was a great experience being a part of this activity and able to serve one of the global issue.
Presentation link – https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eGGBL99ZqUb4KD3R4J0N2DGeP2Yl-hvp3n23npDUnPA/edit?usp=sharing