This innovative practice full paper presents an esports-infused course module and its impact on students' learning. The integration of esports into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education presents a novel approach to enhancing student engagement, learning outcomes, and motivation. This study explores the integration of an esports-infused module into a junior-level Computer Science course on Fundamentals of Internet Systems, aiming to bridge the gap between entertainment and education. The module includes a structured framework consisting of a mini-lecture on esports, compiled learning resources, a hands-on esports-related term project, and a grading rubric. Designed as a team-based initiative, students collaborated to develop a web application related to esports, allowing them to showcase both their technical and interpersonal skills. To evaluate the effectiveness of this innovative instructional method, a mixed-method approach was employed, utilizing a pre-survey, a post-survey, and a focus group discussion. The findings indicate that the esports-infused module significantly improved students' attitudes, motivation, and overall learning experiences, reinforcing the potential of esports as an effective engagement tool within STEM education. Furthermore, the module will be made publicly accessible through the project website, providing a valuable resource for educators seeking to integrate esports into their curricula.

This innovative practice full paper describes the creation of a customizable educational game and measures its effectiveness and student enjoyment. The gamification of learning is an effective tool for instructors to help their students learn concepts. Their popularity has slowly increased in classrooms, which has revealed the issue of reusability with many of them for different subjects or concepts. This has led to the rise of customizable video games, which allow instructors to modify the learning aspect of the game to improve its usability in multiple classes. The game, UnBlocked, effectively has two modes: Teacher and Student. The mode is determined by the account they use to log in with. The goal of the game is to move the red block out of the puzzle by moving the red and brown blocks within ten moves. After completing the level, the student will have to take a quiz created by their teacher. The student will see their score after completing the quiz and starts the next level. The Teacher mode allows instructors to create in-game quizzes with their own questions for their students. Each quiz has five multiple-choice questions and is saved to Playfab, a backend development platform, after creation with a 5 -character string that instructors can give students to access the quiz. The purpose of UnBlocked is to provide instructors with a fun way to give quizzes to their students. The game has been used in two classes and evaluated using surveys to determine user sentiment.

Gamification has proven to be effective in engaging and encouraging people to work towards and achieve goals. Many students struggle to focus on schoolwork, due to a lack of interest, lack of understanding, or other factors unique to the student. Applying gamification elements to education can help engage these students in learning their course material and help them excel academically. This study examines the effectiveness of using gamification techniques to enhance the learning experience in college Computer Science courses. A video game application is utilized to review and reinforce cybersecurity concepts that students have already been taught in class. Previous work has been made on a prototype game build that teaches about ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) components. The focus of this study is to refine and develop the structure of the prototype into a more interactive and enjoyable format with non-competitive and captivating activities that allow students to study at their own pace. An updated version of the game was created that focused on reaching a balance between education and entertainment. The game was used by students enrolled in a cybersecurity class, where pre-survey, post-survey and a focus group interview were conducted to determine how effective the updated version is compared to the current build, in addition to how effective the gamification method is regarding student retention of taught material. The pre-survey and post-survey results revealed an increase in interest and mastery of cybersecurity concepts as a result of playing the game. Students found value in the game as both a method of reviewing material taught in class and an entertaining and engaging game. These results show potential in using gamification in cybersecurity and education.

This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents a new digitized Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST) tool and discusses the results of deploying it to minority students in at-risk schools. Pervasive science stereotypes, particularly stereotypes of scientists, continue to negatively affect minoritized students' perceptions of science and commitment to pursuing STEM-related careers. One helpful tool for better understanding students' perceptions of scientists through projective tests is Chambers's DAST, initially created in 1983. The original protocol for deploying the DAST in a research setting asked students to “draw a scientist” on paper. Then, researchers could assess the seven indicators of stereotypical scientists (i.e., eyeglasses, facial hair, white lab coats, symbols of knowledge, symbols of research, technology, and captions). However, to improve inter-rater reliability and capture a more accurate reflection of students' perceptions of scientists, Finson, Beaver, and Cramond reenvisioned DAST scoring and assessment in 1995 to include eight additional indicators (i.e., indicators of danger, indicators of secrecy, mythic figures, presence of light bulbs, sex indicator for male, Caucasian, middle-aged or elderly, and scientists working indoors). Finson and team called the new DAST scoring rubric the DAST-C, which remains the most widely used one. However, methodological issues still impact DAST assessments, and updated tools for technology have made paper/pencil tasks obsolete, even for young students. With support from the National Science Foundation's Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (NSF ITEST) program, our collaborative interdisciplinary team infused technology-rich STEM learning modules that incorporated a proof-of-concept digitized version of the DAST into at-risk 3 rd –5 th -grade classrooms serving minoritized students. We compared findings from the digitized DAST with a priori paper/pencil data to highlight critical differences in DAST implementation and scoring. The current study had two primary objectives related to updating the DAST as a tool and in terms of streamlining DAST scoring: 1) digitizing the DAST to bring the paper/pencil version into the 21st century and 2) streamlining DAST assessment by integrating digital assessment tools into the new digitized DAST tool. Here, we discuss digitizing the DAST tool, assessing indicators of stereotypical scientists, and deploying the digitized DAST to a population of minoritized students studying in at-risk schools in America.

Local Area Network (LAN) access is the top vector for insider threats and misuses. It is critical for students to learn these vulnerabilities and know the common countermeasures. Although some educational tools exist that are effective in teaching ARP spoofing, they are usually hard to access and not fun enough to engage students. Gamification has been successfully used in many areas of education to engage students in learning. Gamification can provide educational and immersive experiences to the students. To our knowledge, there is no game developed to teach LAN and ARP spoofing concepts. In this paper, we present a gamification of this subject with an escape-the-room style game to teach LAN and ARP spoofing attacks. The game is developed with the Unity game engine and deployed on the world wide web. Therefore, the game is accessible anywhere on the Internet with a web browser. The game has several levels of difficulty that guide learning from the basics of LAN to the countermeasures. This game’s primary learning objectives are 1) Learn how switches and hubs work, and how ARP protocol works; 2) Learn how ARP spoofing works; 3) Learn the counter measures against LAN attacks. The game would be hosted on the Web and students would be allowed to play online using the web link and provide feedback. The game is presented in the form of a 3-level building. Each level has multiple rooms where each room holds the content to learn on a different concept. The player must go through each concept and answer the quiz questions before the player can move to the next room. At the end of each level, the player will get additional challenges to complete to move to the next level. The game events which describe the player’s interaction with the game will be logged and submitted for further future analysis through the GameSparks. Once the player completes all the levels, the player will enter the post-assessment stage, where they will complete a post-test and survey. The post-assessment results will be automatically collected and submitted for quantitative analysis.

This research aims to construct a case resource library for programming course, which can be used for either teachers’ teaching or students’ learning. The cases cannot be simply piled up but rather require a systematic planning. The solution to this is to design a case system model. The outcome-based education (OBE) concept is adopted to guide the research, and a three-dimensional case system model matching the course objectives is designed. Under the guidance of the model, the case resource library construction is more planned. Cases based on the model can provide all-round support for the cultivation of students’ ability by gradually promoting knowledge and technology, frequently exercising one’s abilities, as well as expanding diverse and innovative problems.

This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents a new way to teach Access Control concepts. Access Control is a key component in computer security, and it is critical for students to have basic understanding of access control techniques. We have developed a 2D educational game, titled “Temple of Treasures,” that aims to help students learn the basic concepts of Discretionary Access Control and Mandatory Access Control. The game was developed using the Unity game engine. The game's story is centered around an adventurer in search of gold but end up stuck in a temple and must gain knowledge on targeted concepts to unlock the doors along the escape pathways. Students must complete an in-game assessment with immediate feedback after each of the three levels in this game. Player information and assessment data are saved on the cloud through GameSparks for further analysis. To measure the effectiveness, we developed a presurvey, post-survey, and focus group protocols. In addition, the UI Accessibility Plugin is used to make the game accessible to visually impaired players. The game has been integrated into several computer science courses including Operating Systems at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, System Administration II and Introduction to Information Security at Winston-Salem State University. The game was deployed to a WebGL format so students can play it online. In this paper, we will present game design, development, and assessment results in detail.

The constant rise of cyber-attacks poses an increasing demand for more qualified people with cybersecurity knowledge. Games have emerged as a well-fitted technology to engage users in learning processes. In this paper, we analyze the emotional parameters of people while learning cybersecurity through computer games. The data are gathered using a non-invasive Brain- Computer Interface (BCI) to study the signals directly from the users' brains. We analyze six performance metrics (engagement, focus, excitement, stress, relaxation, and interest) of 12 users while playing computer games to measure the effectiveness of the games to attract the attention of the participants. Results show participants were more engaged with parts of the games that are more interactive instead of those that present text to read and type.

J. Xu1, X. Yuan1, S. Nallela1, J. Zhang2 1North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University (UNITED STATES) 2Winston-Salem State University (UNITED STATES)

The protection of sensitive information in computer systems and networks from malicious manipulation is critical. As a key component in cybersecurity, access control is used to mitigate malicious access to sensitive information. To help students master the access control concepts, we developed a 2D educational game titled "Temple of Treasures" that aims to teach Discretionary Access Control (DAC), Access Control List (ACL) and Mandatory Access Control (MAC) in Unix/Linux Systems via a fun and interactive environment. The Unity3D game engine is used for game development and the game can be deployed to multiple platforms such as Windows, macOS, and web. Player information and in-game assessment data are saved on the cloud through GameSparks for analysis. The game story is centered around a group of adventurers in search of gold. The player is stuck in a temple and has to explore the temple for escape routes. The game has three levels, where level one focuses on DAC, level two focuses on ACL and the last level is for MAC. The player has to explore the temple and gain knowledge on targeted concepts to unlock the gate to the next level. Three in-game assessments have been implemented to provide immediate feedback for students. The UI Accessibility Plugin (UAP) is used to make the game accessible to visually impaired players. To scientifically measure the effectiveness of the game, we developed pre-test, post-test, survey, and focus group protocols. The game has been used in the Operating Systems class as a homework assignment at North Carolina A&T State University in spring 2020. This poster will present the game design and development process, the detailed evaluation plan, and our initial classroom experience. This portable and self-contained game will make it easy to share with other faculty engaged in cyber security teaching and research.

This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents a new way to teach buffer overflow concepts. Historically, buffer overflow has been the number one security vulnerability in applications for many years. More recently, advances in protection methods including non-executable stack, canaries, ASLR, and Windows DEP have made buffer overflow attacks a much smaller security concern, but they are still a serious issue in embedded systems and micro-controllers. Therefore, it is still very important to teach students this topic. There are several tools available for teaching buffer overflow attacks, but there are no easily accessible interactive teaching tools to help students understand the concepts. We developed a web-based interactive visualization tool that aims to help students gain a deeper understanding of buffer overflow concepts. There are six learning components that build upon one another as well as an assessment after each component for immediate learning feedback. There is also a space shooter mini-game between each learning component. To evaluate the impact of this online visualization tool on students’ learning, we developed in-game assessments, a pre-test, a post-test and a survey. This tool was used in two classes at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) and North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T) in Fall 2019. The classroom experience reports and focus group discussion show that this tool helped students improve their understanding of buffer overflow concepts.

Cyber security is a critical field in Computer Science education today. We need to prepare students for the increasing security challenges they will face in the future. The workforce also needs to have additional cyber security skills to best protect the interests of the nation. Motivating and engaging more students in this field is an important step to meet the needs of future workforce. Games have been successfully used in many areas of education, including Computer Science, to engage students in learning. They provide educational, immersive experiences, which could help underrepresented students gain the confidence to pursue a career or further study in the cyber security field while also inspiring others. The poster will present the three-year project that aims to develop and assess three educational games with in-game assessments to effectively teach cyber security concepts (Access Control, LAN Vulnerabilities and Buffer Overflow). These games will be designed with different levels of difficulty to target students from freshmen to seniors and integrated into the existing computer science curriculum at Winston-Salem State University and North Carolina A&T State University to benefit a wide range of students. In addition, all these games will be portable, self-contained and available for download from the project website.

Cybersecurity education has become increasingly critical as we spend more of our everyday lives online. Research shows that college students are mostly unaware of the many online dangers. To teach students about cybersecurity using their preferred medium, gaming, we developed an educational 2D game called "Bird's Life" that aims to teach college students, as well as general interest individuals, about phishing. Players will come to understand phishing attacks and how to avoid them in real-world scenarios through a fun gaming context. The game can be deployed to multiple platforms such as PC, web, and mobile devices. To measure the effect of this game on learning the concepts of cybersecurity, a pre-test, post-test, and online survey were developed and used in the evaluation process. In Spring 2017, the Windows version of the game was used in two courses in our department (CSC1310 Computer Programming I and CSC3332 Fundamentals of Internet Systems). In Spring 2018, it was used in five sections of one general education course (CSC1306 Computer and Its Use I).

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is an attack where the attacker overflows the victim’s computer with requests, so legitimate users cannot access the victim. Currently, there is a lack of engaging ways to teach about DDoS attacks. Thus, we created a 3D game to teach the basic concepts of DDoS. The game offers a variety of debugging and visualizing tools, which can be used to examine malicious IP addresses. To evaluate the impact of the game, a pre-quiz and post-quiz will be used, which are incorporated into the game. The game is self-contained and can be deployed to different platforms.

Local area network (LAN) access is the top vector for insider threats and misuses according to the Verizon's Data Breach Investigations Report. Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is often exploited by the attackers who have gained access to the LAN. It is critical for students to learn how attacks on ARP work and know the countermeasures. In an earlier work, authors developed a hands-on lab to help students learn how an ARP spoofing attack works by asking them to create and send attack packets. To enhance learning further, we present an interactive visualization tool that intuitively shows the effects of the ARP spoofing attack in real-time. The Hacker Graphical User Interface (HGUI) is an interactive visualization tool developed to assist students in learning how ARP Spoofing works. By modeling a controlled ARP Spoofing attack using virtual machines, we give students the ability to alter elements of the attack by interacting with the visualization. This tool was developed using Processing, an open source programming language used in many visual art communities. It runs on virtual machines installed with Kali Linux. This tool animates attack packets, normal packets, and the status of ARP cache in real-time. If students have successfully carried out the ARP spoofing attack, they can see the normal packets being routed to the attacker machine and the victim's ARP cache being poisoned. In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of the lab. Tests were conducted to measure the performance of students before and after using this tool. We also gave students surveys after they completed the hands-on lab. The result shows that this tool can significantly enhance students' understanding of the concept of ARP spoofing attacks and motivate them in learning more about cyber security.

Cyber security education has become increasingly critical as we spend more of our everyday lives online. Research shows that college students are mostly unaware of many online dangers. To teach students about cyber security using their preferred medium, gaming, we developed an educational 2D game called Bird's Life that aims to teach college students about phishing. Players will come to understand phishing attacks and how to avoid them in real world scenarios through a fun gaming context. The game can be deployed to multiple platforms such as PC, web and mobile devices. To measure the effect of this game on learning the concepts of cyber security, a pre-test, post-test and online survey were developed and used in the evaluation process. In Spring 2017, the game was used in the CSC1310 Computer programming I class and CSC3332 Fundamentals of Internet Systems class at Winston-Salem State University. Initial classroom evaluations show that students love this type of learning and they did perform better in the post-test after playing the game.

Verizon's Data Breach Investigations Report states that local area network (LAN) access is the top vector for insider threats and misuses. In Ethernet, the common vulnerabilities come from Address Resolution Protocol (ARP). It is critical for students to learn these vulnerabilities, understand the mechanisms of exploits, and know the countermeasures, which include static ARP cache entries, improved ARP module in operating systems, encryption, intrusion detection, and data backup. In this paper, we introduce a hands-on lab to help students learn how ARP spoofing attack works. The objective of this lab is to let students successfully become a Man-In-The Middle by manually creating attack packets. Although tools exist that carry out ARP spoofing attack automatically, asking students to create raw ARP spoofing packets themselves can help them understand the mechanisms of this attack method much deeper than with the automatic tools. We have studied the effectiveness of this lab on the students' understanding of LAN vulnerabilities. Tests were conducted to measure the performance of students before and after using this tool. We gave students surveys after they completed the hands-on lab. A few students were selected for an interview by an independent evaluator. The result shows that this tool can help students understand the concept of ARP spoofing attacks and motivate them in learning more about cyber security.

Linked lists play an important role in learning basic Computer Science (CS) concepts among a number of different data structures. They are the basis for more complex data structures such as tree data structures. Recursion, stacks and queues can be effectively implemented using linked lists. We observe over the years that our students struggle with linked lists more than some other data structures. While students understand the concepts of stack and queue data structures faster, they need more time to understand and visualize the linked list and its operation algorithms. This paper presents a game-like instructional module called Space Traveler that aims to assist students to better understand and master the concepts of linked lists. Four CS undergraduate students developed it using GameMaker Studio in three months. The Space Traveler game looks like a classic snake game. The game supports practicing the linked list operations such as insertion, search and deletion. This paper presents the game design and implementation in detail and shares our experiences using this module in the CSC2331 Data Structure class at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) in 2014. This module has been refined based on the feedback from students and instructors. The refined version will be used again in the upcoming semesters. A pretest, a posttest and a survey were developed and used in the evaluation process. In addition, a lab assignment was designed to accompany the game module. Initial assessment outcomes showed very promising student improvements as a result of the use of this game module in the classroom. The module has been made available online to benefit students at other institutions.

Recursion is one of the most powerful problem-solving techniques in computer science, but many students seem to struggle with the concept of recursion. In addition, the instructors find it hard to teach this concept using traditional teaching method. This paper presents a game module titled "Recursive Runner" that aims to reinforce student understanding of recursion in a game. Four undergraduate students developed the game with GameMaker Studio in three months. The game was designed for short gameplay time and it does not require any prior experience in gaming. The objective of the game is to provide the students with a fun environment to visualize and follow the flow of execution of recursive functions. This paper presents the game design and implementation in detail and shares our experiences in using this module in the CSC1311 Computer Programming II and CSC2331 Data Structures classes at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU). A pretest, a posttest and a survey were developed and used in the evaluation process. In addition, a lab assignment was designed to use with the game to evaluate student understanding of the concept. Initial assessment outcomes show promising results and the feedback is positive according to the survey and interview.

This paper presents a game-like instructional module titled "The Lost Java Code" for teaching decision structures (if, if-else, if-else-if and switch) and related concepts in Computer Programming I class. Developed by two undergraduate students with GameMaker 8.1, it is a side scroll game where participants need to stop at all the information booths to learn/review the concepts at each level and then answer all the questions correctly in order to open the gate to the next level. The objective of the game is to provide the participants with a fun environment to review and practice the concepts of decision structures. This paper presents the game design and implementation in detail and shares our experiences in using this module in the CSC1310 Computer Programming I class at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU). Initial assessment outcomes show promising results and student feedback is very positive.