The project SuperCyberKids provides children ages 8 to 13 and their teachers with an educational ecosystem of cybersecurity learning content.

Cybersecurity for children has become a rapidly growing topic due to the increased availability of the internet to children and their consequent exposure to various online risks. Children start going online at an early age and are doing so even more after the sudden rise in remote schooling due to the COVID19 pandemic. Therefore, it is crucial to provide teachers and their young pupils with
a fun way to gain understanding of cybersecurity and adopt safe online practices.

SuperCyberKids aims to respond to this need by providing children aged 8 to 13 and their teachers with an educational ecosystem providing learning content on cybersecurity, using a game-based approach to increase motivation and engagement. The content will be delivered through a gamification platform, including two games on cybersecurity.

Educational ecosystem and cybersecurity games

SuperCyberKids partners already offer two digital cybersecurity games free of charge: Spoofy, a multilingual online game, and Nabbovaldo, an Italian- language app available from Google Play and Apple Store (more languages coming soon!).

And SuperCyberKids has much, much more in store. This Erasmus+ research project funded by the European Commission is working to provide children aged 8 to 13 and their teachers with a complete educational ecosystem, with a range of training, teaching, and learning content on cybersecurity, using a game-based approach to increase motivation and engagement. This will be delivered through a gamified platform that includes the Spoofy and Nabbovaldo cybersecurity games, with more to come. Overall, the project will produce two main outputs, the educational ecosystem and detailed guidelines for implementing it effectively.

Partnership

SuperCyberKids involves eight partners from five countries, including two extensive Europe-wide umbrella organizations, one dealing specifically with cybersecurity (ECSO). ESHA’s task is to ensure that stakeholders are constantly involved in project activities, through panel groups and small-scale enactment events. This is in addition to at least fifty school heads plus at least one-hundred teachers who will be directly participating in pilot uses cases.

The partnership will carry out four pilots in four different settings (Europe-wide in English and in local languages in Italy, Estonia, and Germany) to test these results. This will lead to developing a Handbook of Good Practices on Cybersecurity Education in Schools for Children Aged 8–13. This handbook will include recommendations for researchers, school heads and teachers, parents, and game and instructional designers, as well as Recommendations relevant for policymakers, regulatory bodies and institutions in cybersecurity education.

Project results:

1. Design, develop, and test a comprehensive educational ecosystem on cybersecurity-related skills for children, as a socio-educational infrastructure to be used by diverse actors (i.e., pupils, educators, parents) based on innovative game-based pedagogical approaches that can motivate and engage pupils and support teachers in learning design and evaluation, including a wide range of attractive educational materials dealing with the topic of cybersecurity in the classroom to promote kids’ engagement, providing high-quality learning resources focused on cybersecurity.An important aspect to consider in the design is the engagement of the users for whom they are designed, particularly schoolchildren. For this purpose, also digital games and a game-based learning approach can be used.
2. The related guidelines for implementing it. The Guidelines will address two levels of analysis and recommendations: one countryspecific linked to the specific characteristics of the national / local context where the pilot took place, and a second more general level, expressed in terms of policies and recommendations.

Duration of the project: 1-1-2023 to 31-12-2025

Project website

www.supercyberkids.eu

Project partners

• Institute of Educational Technology of the National Research Council of Italy (ITD-CNR)
• GRIFO multimedia (Italy)
• University of Mannheim (Germany)
• ESHA
• European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO)
• AVANZI (Italy)
• CGI Eesti AS (Estonia)
• Tallin University (TLU)