Gao, L., Blinder, E. B., Barnes, A., Song, K., Clegg, T., Vitak, J., & Chetty, M. (2025). Creating and Evaluating Privacy and Security Micro-Lessons for Elementary School Children. arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.07427.

Abstract: The growing use of technology in K–8 classrooms highlights a parallel need for formal learning opportunities aimed at helping children use technology safely and protect their personal information. Even the youngest students are now using tablets, laptops, and apps to support their learning; however, there are limited curricular materials available for elementary and middle school children on digital privacy and security topics. To bridge this gap, we developed a series of micro-lessons to help K–8 children learn about digital privacy and security at school. We first conducted a formative study by interviewing elementary school teachers to identify the design needs for digital privacy and security lessons. We then developed micro-lessons—multiple 15-20 minute activities designed to be easily inserted into the existing curriculum—using a co-design approach with multiple rounds of developing and revising the micro-lessons in collaboration with teachers. Throughout the process, we conducted evaluation sessions where teachers implemented or reviewed the micro-lessons. Our study identifies strengths, challenges, and teachers’ tailoring strategies when incorporating micro-lessons for K–8 digital privacy and security topics, providing design implications for facilitating learning about these topics in school classrooms.

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Ciampaglia, G. L., Flammini, A., & Menczer, F. (2015). The production of information in the attention economy. Scientific Reports, 5(1), Article 1.

Abstract: Children are exposed to technology at home and school at very young ages, often using family mobile devices and educational apps. It is therefore critical that they begin learning about privacy and security concepts during their elementary school years, rather than waiting until they are older. Such skills will help children navigate an increasingly connected world and develop agency over their personal data, online interactions, and online security. In this paper, we explore how a simple technique—a ''Would Your Rather'' (WYR) game involving hypothetical privacy and security scenarios—can support children in working through the nuances of these types of situations and how educators can leverage this approach to support children's privacy and security learning. We conducted three focus groups with 21 children aged 7-12 using the WYR activity and interviewed 13 elementary school teachers about the use of WYR for facilitating privacy and security learning. We found that WYR provided a meaningful opportunity for children to assess privacy and security risks, consider some of the social and emotional aspects of privacy and security dilemmas, and assert their agency in a manner typically unavailable to children in an adult-centric society. Teachers highlighted connections between privacy and security dilemmas and children's social and emotional learning and offered additional insights about using this WYR technique in and beyond their classrooms. Based on these findings, we highlight four opportunities for using WYR to support children in engaging with privacy and security concepts from an early age.

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Clegg, T. L., Cleveland, K., Weight, E., Greene, D., & Elmqvist, N. (2023). Data everyday as community‐driven science: Athletes' critical data literacy practices in collegiate sports contexts. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 60(8), 1786-1816.

In this article, we investigate the community-driven science happening organically in elite athletics as a means of engaging a community of learners—collegiate athletes, many of whom come from underrepresented groups—in STEM. We aim to recognize the data literacy practices inherent in sports play and to explore the potential of critical data literacy practices for enabling athletes to leverage data science as a means of addressing systemic racial, equity, and justice issues inherent in sports institutions. We leverage research on critical data literacies as a lens to present case studies of three athletes at an NCAA Division 1 university spanning three different sports. We focus on athletes' experiences as they engage in critical data literacy practices and the ways they welcome, adapt, resist, and critique such engagements. Our findings indicate ways in which athletes (1) readily accept data practices espoused by their coaches and sport, (2) critique and intentionally disengage from such practices, and (3) develop their own new data productions. In order to support community-driven science, our findings point to the critical role of athletics' organizations in promoting athletes' access to, as well as engagement and agency with data practices on their teams.

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Clegg, T., Greene, D. M., Beard, N., & Brunson, J. (2020, April). Data everyday: Data literacy practices in a Division I college sports context. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1-13).

Data analysis is central to sports training. Today, cutting-edge digital technologies are deployed to measure and improve athletes' performance. But too often researchers focus on the technology collecting performance data at the expense of understanding athletes' experiences with data. This is particularly the case in the understudied context of collegiate athletics, where competition is fierce, tools for data analysis abound, and the institution actively manages athletes' lives. By investigating how student-athletes analyze their performance data and are analyzed in turn, we can better understand the individual and institutional factors that make data literacy practices in athletics meaningful and productive-or not. Our pilot interview study of student-athletes at one Division I university reveals a set of opportunities for student-athletes to engage with and learn from data analytics practices. These opportunities come with a set of contextual tensions that should inform the design of new technologies for collegiate sports settings.

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