Pilot SACE course to feature measures against cyberbullying and hate speech

The next generation of technology students will go beyond coding and security to tackle the disturbing human elements of the internet, in the first SACE course on online bullying.

Combating online bullying and hate speech will be covered in a pilot SACE course on cyber studies which is being taken by students from seven schools.

The ethical issues will be covered in addition to technical skills such as cyber security in the broad-reaching subject which is being taught for the first time from this term.

The students in years 10 and 11 will be guided by industry and government workers as well as teachers from each of the schools in a pilot trial sanctioned by the SACE Board.

It will be the first time such a course counts as credits toward the SA Certificate of Education, which intends to offer the subject to all schools in future.

There was clearly a gap in education for such a course, said St Peter’s College headmaster Tim Browning, who has been newly appointed to the SACE Board and a leading advocate for the new course.

“The project is quite revolutionary in that it is cross-disciplinary,” he said.

“There will be a team of staff drawing on multiple areas of expertise delivering the subject, along with a team of industry practitioners.

“Children from all three sectors – government, independent and Catholic – are involved.

“It will be platform agnostic so the students can turn up in person, log on from school or from home and take part in lectures and tutorials and hear from the experts.”

At least 60 students from the seven schools are taking part in the pilot course.

James, 16, Louisa, 16, and Aidan, 15, are taking part in a pilot course for SACE in cyber studies which begins this week at St Peters College. Picture: Tom Huntley

St Peter's academic deputy Nick Carter said students helped inform the subject content, calling for a holistic approach not simply coding and cyber security.

“They wanted more than just tech,” Mr Carter said.

“It won’t just be getting really nerdy with microchips and hacking, cool as that is.

“It has a powerful social dimension and ethical dimension.

“The world operates in the cyber sphere. It affects how we interact socially, economically, politically.”

Students would look at issues such as racist abuse on social media and consider both what should be done and, technically, how it could be done.

They would also examine growing technologies such as biometrics – how it works, who owns the data and how it should be used.

The seven schools in the pilot are St Peter’s, Adelaide High, Sacred Heart, St Michael’s College, Wilderness, Seymour and Walford.

“As everything about the cyber world is evolving and becoming more relevant every day, it is really exciting to be involved in this pilot,” Sacred Heart year 11 student James Ganley said.

Adelaide High year 11 Louisa Wagener said it was really important to learn how to be safe and secure online.

She was interested in exploring the new career paths and hoped the course would “help us prepare for these opportunities”.

St Peter’s College year 10 student Aidan Eaton said it was great to be involved in designing the course.

“It gave us students the opportunity to share what we want to learn about the subject and how we want to learn it,” he said.

Reports will go back to the SACE Board after the six-month trial.

If all goes well, “then the next challenge will be how to roll it out across the state,” Mr Browning said.

Because no teachers are currently qualified specifically in cyber studies, he envisaged a similar model of teachers from different disciplines and different schools working together, grouped by region or another unifying factor.