Who doesn’t want a free cookie? Well, it depends on what kind we’re offering. In addition to chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin, another type of cookie was distributed to some CVU students last week. Read on to learn more.
A few weeks ago, CVU 9th grade student Alex Fox, as part of research about cybersecurity for a Nexus project, shared a survey with all students at CVU. The goal was to see what they knew and thought about a number of topics. Some of the questions included: What are computer cookies? What do you do when you get a cookie pop-up? What is two-factor authentication? Should passwords for all accounts be the same? What do you do when you get spam? What is cybersecurity, why might it be important, and what are the potential benefits and negatives of cybersecurity? Alex reports that they had over 60 responses to the survey and that most people who responded knew very little about cybersecurity.
That survey whet the appetite to help people learn more about computer or internet cookies. Faculty members of CVU’s technology integration committee, led by digital learning leader Charlie MacFadyen, decided to engage students in a related activity to help them learn about internet cookies, using real cookies.
On Monday, May 9, during the lunch blocks at CVU, students were offered a free cookie. All the students had to do to get the cookie was fill out a one-question form. They were asked “Which best describes you?” with options around whether they liked dogs, cats, both, or neither. When filling out the form, it automatically collected their email address. By the way, special thanks goes out to the Redhawk Cafe staff for the delicious cookies!
About 300 students filled out the survey to get a cookie. CVU advisors were told of this activity ahead of time and were asked not to share what it was about with students until later in the week.
On Wednesday, students who filled out the form got an email that looked something like this, depending on their answer to the form.
Hi _____________,
We hope you enjoyed your cookie in the cafeteria!
And since you're a dog person, here's a picture of some adorable puppies. By the way, we also shared your information with dogs.com, so you may be getting their ads soon*.
*Just kidding-- we didn't really share your info with anyone! But guess what? When you accept cookies on the internet, this is often what happens. Cookies are files that save information about your activity on a website. So-called first-party cookies can be helpful so that sites "remember" you the next time you visit (for example, knowing what preferences you chose or what's in your shopping cart). But when you agree to third-party cookies, you allow websites to share your information with other websites (often, for targeted ads). Next time you're asked to "accept all cookies" on a website, try clicking the option to learn more and choose what you agree to.
At the end of the week, ALL students got an email with the general information about this activity. Advisors were asked to show a video (see the first link below) to their advisories and then pose some questions to get the discussion about the experience going. Some teachers reported that these were valuable conversations.
Hopefully, this will help inform more of you about computer cookies, and maybe you’ll think twice before deciding whether or not to accept one next time.
Learn more here:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdVPflECed8
- https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/10/18656519/what-are-cookies-website-tracking-gdpr-privacy
- https://youtu.be/HFyaW50GFOs
- https://cookie-script.com/all-you-need-to-know-about-third-party-cookies.html
Thank you to the CVU technology integration committee for sharing this with us!
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