“I wish my school had something like that” or “schools have classes like that now?!” are some of the most common replies when I tell somebody that I’m a cyber security teacher in a high school. Many schools today have computer science or STEM classes where students are able to dabble in coding and programming languages, robotics, web design, and the like; these same classes are typically an elective where a techy teacher shares a handful of resources with a class full of students whose interests pull them in 30 different directions.
When I accepted my current position, my administration told me, “You teach cyber security now.” I had been an ELA teacher for 11 years and constantly tied my love of tech into my teaching, so to say I was excited barely scratched the surface. I attended CTE conferences, I reached out to certification companies, and I scoured the internet for cyber resources. Yet, as most tech teachers can attest, there are a million resources but no guide on how to best implement any of it. So, I did what I do best and pieced together a program that pulled in skills from all over the cybersphere while sprinkling cyber security content in as I went.
I taught threat actors, networks, computer components, databases, queries, code, and on and on. Coding and programming were easy, but everything else was just… theory. We could talk about insider threats and phishing, learn to recognize social engineering, and discuss the ethics of paying for ransomware… but it was just talking. I “taught” cyber security, but when the students had to choose between that and building a webpage they could see or programming a robot they could move, they were more interested in doing.
Then, through some serendipitous alignment of the universe, I was introduced to KC7. A friend responded to my request for business partners by connecting me with the vice president of KC7, Greg Schloember, and describing the platform as a website “where you can role-play as a cybersecurity expert protecting a fictional company from hackers.” Once I introduced this to my class, I went from “teaching” cyber security to really teaching cyber security.
My name is Bryan Quillen and I started teaching high school English in 2012. I received a bachelor’s degree in English Education from Morehead State University and then immediately jumped into a master’s program for English at UofL. At the time, I believed my path would take me to teaching at a college, but over the course of my master’s I switched my focus to using technology in an ELA classroom - I was even able to co-author a paper in the English Journal about using technology to improve classroom discussions.
Technology in an English classroom was a no-brainer for me as new media began popping up everywhere - from memes and videos to apps like Pear Deck and Flip that increased student engagement. My planning period became a time of recording tutorials and creating how-to guides to share with my colleagues. It didn’t take long before I was leading professional development sessions for how to successfully integrate these methods and apps into the classroom. I became the de facto “tech guy” in my building and embraced that by doing everything from flipping to gamifying my classroom. I became an experimenter, trying new things and adjusting based on my results.
Due to my classroom innovation and work with PBL and gamification, I was chosen to be in the first Innovative Teacher Cohort through the Kentucky Department of Education. This led to a twelve-week project where my students were imagining dystopian futures, using AI to write futuristic news articles, journaling from the perspectives of various citizens, developing a preventative PSA with the help of a local radio host, and publishing all of this on websites that we shared with our community. This work caught the attention of the Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative (OVEC) who selected me to be a “teacher navigator” working to push the boundaries of what education could look like.
During this time I was working on another master’s degree in Educational Technology. I wanted to be on the forefront of technology integration in every way possible. Finishing this degree allowed me to teach any computer science course, and that included the cyber security CTE pathway at my school. I finished my last year of teaching English in 2023 and moved into cyber security in the fall of 2024, bringing with me all of my enthusiasm and eagerness to develop a love of both learning and technology in my students.
I quickly learned that it’s alright to not be an expert in every aspect of technology, truthfully, it would be impossible. So I shared what I knew and learned more as I went. We used FreeCodeCamp, CodeHS, Scratch, Blender, CompTIA, the Adobe and Google Education Suites, and so many more sites and programs in addition to all of the projects and activities I could imagine. I found myself falling in love with teaching code and even developing my confidence with teaching math using binary and hexadecimal. There was something for everybody in the class, but it didn’t feel like a class for cyber security.
Enter Greg Schloemer, February 2024. Greg pitched KC7 to me as a cyber security role-playing game and I didn’t need to hear much more before I was introducing it to my class. He set up a single “event” session for my students that enabled a local leaderboard and gave me rights to add my students and it was ON!
My students were introduced to the politically tense world of Valdoria where a scandalous newspaper article was published about a candidate ahead of the election. I played the video for the whole class, I printed out the training guides and scattered them throughout the room. The only sound in the class was frenzied typing as a group of sixteen and seventeen year olds began learning Kusto Query Language and digging through datasets.
This platform took everything I had been trying to teach throughout the year and turned it into a game that hooked my students in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t long before students were circulating around the room seeking and offering advice or discussing the story surrounding their work. They were talking about intrusions and phishing emails with fervor… IN LESS THAN A SINGLE CLASS PERIOD.
Before long I had a video call scheduled where my students were able to meet Simeon Kakpovi, the president and founder of KC7. He asked for their feedback, showed them the code behind the scenes, and offered them advice on how to be successful. Some asked for more hints, but he pushed them to find meaning in the struggle and explained that this game mirrors exactly what he does in his work as a security analyst at Microsoft. The lack of shortcuts seemed to embolden my students to try harder. They were consumed by this game and for the first time, I felt that my students were truly learning cyber security.
Simeon enthusiastically describes KC7 as “the cyber training software we wished we had when we were learning.” His leap to imagine and create this tool to fill in these educational gaps has been a gift to my teaching. In addition to the cyber security knowledge it is helping my students about threat actors, tactics, and intrusions; KC7 has sparked the imagination of my students in many other realms as well. Within the first class, my students were discussing the tactics of the intrusion and making logical assumptions about what moves they needed to make next. At no point in my first year of teaching cyber security did I think I would have students thinking so deeply about queries or how IP addresses resolve to different domains - but KC7 made it happen.
In addition to actually understanding cyber security, this unlocked passions for teaching, writing, designing, public speaking, and storytelling. When Greg visited my classroom at the end of March (just a month and a half after the game was introduced), he found himself moving around answering extremely technical questions for students all day. The incredible part is that the students listened to every single word. In education we often find that students’ eyes glaze over when things get difficult, but they were lighting up at the opportunity to learn. Students wanted to understand more about a question they had already solved, but they still weren’t sure about the “why” behind it. One student even sought out answers so he could help explain them to my freshmen during the next period. In real time I was able to watch my students develop a thirst for learning and take ownership over helping others do the same.
When my students started asking questions about why KC7 didn’t have this or that feature, they were provided with a slide deck titled “Project Manager Process for Presenting KC7 Features.” The slides guided them through the process of proposing features by considering user personas and stories, defining functional and non-functional requirements, designing mockups, and setting acceptance criteria. In just a couple more class periods students were asking, “when can I present this to Greg and Simeon?” or “can we schedule a Meet this week?” In addition to the presentation skills, students were getting experience with technical writing as they wrote attribution reports or incident reports to a variety of audiences.
Students proposed features for players and educators including a term glossary, one-on-one competitions, gamified features like streaks and perks, new 3D modeled trophies, and even stories for new modules. Within a couple of weeks, my classroom became a bustling development space where students became so invested in their work that it was hard to get them to leave when class was over. Honestly, I don’t know who was more excited: my students, me, or Greg and Simeon.
I became so excited about the possibilities afforded by KC7 that I began imagining how to build it into my class as the foundation to student learning. The capability to integrate both English and social studies skills alongside the technical aspects of the program will make educators’ mouths water. Whether you want to call them soft- or transferable skills, KC7 brings them in by the truckload: collaboration, communication, time management, writing, critical thinking, and on and on.
As I continue this journey from core content to career technical educator, I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. I no longer feel intimidated by teaching high school students content and skills that are usually reserved for college students and professionals. I am so excited for another school year, for embracing new challenges, and for continuing to grow alongside KC7 to make cyber security education in high school attainable for everybody. Thanks to an email of introduction that led me to this point, I can confidently say, I teach cyber security now.