Teaching Privacy: Multimedia Making a Difference

As part of the Teaching Privacy project, researchers at the International Computer Science Institute and the University of California, Berkeley, are developing learning tools to empower K-12 students and college undergraduates in making informed choices about privacy. Teaching Privacy in part grew out of empirical research on the privacy implications of multimedia technology; this research generated a great deal of interest from teachers, who often want to provide students with guidance on online privacy but feel they are not sufficiently versed in the technical details. These interactions inspired the project, which focuses on working with teachers through outreach, curriculum-building, and professional development. This article describes the project team's interdisciplinary approach to developing and disseminating engaging, interactive educational apps that demonstrate what happens to personal information on the Internet, with a particular focus on multimedia, and their approach to explaining the underlying social and technical principles in accessible terms.