The Bossier City-based Cyber Innovation Center has announced it’s launching a scholarly journal to disseminate cyber learning best practices, according to CIC vice president G.B. Cazes.
“There’s a lot of things going on right now across K-12 in computer science, which is then tied into universities and colleges and the overall question: How do we teach cyber in today’s classrooms? There’s more and more energy around it and it just seemed like the right time,” Cazes said, who also directs the organization’s National Integrated Cyber Education Research Center.
The Cyber Education Journal has a call out to educators at all grade levels to submit manuscripts that address issues related to teaching digital technologies, according to the journal’s editor in chief Brian Etheridge. Etheridge says the journal will publish its first issue in July, and manuscript submissions will be evaluated through a double-blind, peer-reviewed process.
“We see this as a place where scholars of all different stripes and all different interests who see the emerging power of this medium can share how they’re trying to engage their students in the study of it,” Etheridge said, who directs the Center for Teaching Excellence at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville.
Etheridge anticipates the journal will delve into topics like how to teach cyber security, ethics, robotics and privacy. The Cyber Education Journal editorial board is currently comprised of about 15 education professionals nationwide representing several disciplines, according to Etheridge. He is eager to attract articles and exchange ideas from across the spectrum of education.
“Oftentimes, some of the most innovative stuff that happens around education comes from elementary or middle schools, and to be able to share that with all teachers I think is very important,” Etheridge said.
Cazes says the open-access journal will quickly grow to more than one issue a year in the future.
CIC is being recognized in a new White House initiative called Computer Science for All. The CIC’s education model of expanding computer science across disciplines in K-12 schools and professional development for teachers is being lauded by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The Computer Science for All initiative will provide $4 billion in funding for states and $100 million directly for districts in the 2017 federal budget.