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With children spending more time online, personal data are stored on their devices making them susceptible to online risks. Exposing students to cybersecurity education at an early age is critical for raising awareness and knowledge. Yet access to cybersecurity education curricular materials that are engaging for young students is limited. In this work, we present interactive cybersecurity stories for students in grades 3-5 delivered through a commercial social robot. Through focus groups and interviews we subsequently investigated teachers’ views on using a social robot for cybersecurity education, interest in incorporating social robots in the classroom, and perceptions of the ways in which social robots can impact teaching practice and student learning. Findings indicated that teachers found the social robot engaging and expressed interest in using it in their classroom despite some concerns. Findings have implications for the design and implementation of cybersecurity curricula delivered through emerging technologies. 

Social robots have recently been gaining attention in the education field. Given their capabilities, researchers can use social robots in various ways that support human-robot interactions. In this paper, we present an interactive cybersecurity education program to teach children about foundation cybersecurity concepts using a social robot. To create child-robot interactions in cybersecurity education, we devised three processes. First, in collaboration with practicing teachers we developed an interactive story to support student engagement and learning of cybersecurity concepts. Second, we prototyped animations for the story on the social robot. Third, we use a mixed-methods approach to pilot test our cybersecurity education program. Our research highlights the potential of social robot use in education, both for child-robot interaction and K-12 cybersecurity education.