School: Western High School
    Davie, Florida, The United States of America

4 students, ages 16,16, 15, 17, worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 21, 2003. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2003

Classes and Teachers: Mrs. Alexandra Vlachakis/ Elliott, Katherine, Sonia, and David

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.westernhigh.org/

1. Description of Our Team

The four students on this team are part of the Networking Academy and Computer Club in our school, Western High School, in Davie, FL. Our group is an ethnically diverse group of students. Elliott, a junior, is a Cuban American and 16 years old. Katherine, also a junior, is from Peru and 16 years old. Sonia is a sophomore whose mother is Cambodian and father is American, and she is 15 years of age. Lastly David, our only senior, is Asian and 17 years of age. All of our team members have interest in pursuing computer-oriented careers after high school. Our instructor, who is from El Salvador, is Cisco Networking Certified, and has been teaching computers for ten years and networking for three years.

Our team decided to do this web page because through their studies into the world of information technology, they noticed that cyber crime is an area in the technology world that has a great deal of controversy. They realized that this was the area of the law that many students in their age group violated because they did not have a clear understanding of what the laws were. Therefore, the team joined together in hopes that through their research and development of the page, many of the controversial issues surrounding cyber crime will be clarified for students and people of all age groups.

2. Summary of Our Project

The web project takes the user on an in-depth journey into the morals, thoughts, and laws behind cyber crime. These topics are copyright infringement, software piracy, fraud, plagiarism, hacking, and identity theft. The team surveyed around 210 students at Western High School and in our community, Davie, Florida, with questions involving the moral implications of these topics. The home user takes this survey online at the team website, www.truthaboutcybercrime.com, and is informed with the facts and laws behind the questions as they take part in the survey.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:4-6

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:more than 6

E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):

We are fortunate because all of our team members have access to updated computers, software and fast access internet equipment at home and school.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Our team had a few obstacles that we overcame to finish our project. Our first obstacle was the factor of time. Our team found out about the project in late February and had to rapidly work on it mostly outside of school. Our next major challenge was commitment of team members. Many of our previous members had commitment issues and could not put forth the time and the effort involved with the project. Our last obstacle was the learning of various software programs such as Macromedia Flash, Microsoft FrontPage, IMOVIE and Swish.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Doors to Diplomacy has helped our students come to a better understanding of how cyber crime impacts our society. It has educated them on what is right and what is wrong when using private property on the internet.

6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?

The web page helped our students get a better understanding of the laws that protect artists, musicians, computer users and software manufactures. Our team had many discussions and controversy among themselves and the students they surveyed regarding the topics the web page covered. The team feels that they can now make better choices regarding cyber crime. Before the page, their knowledge and laws regarding these issues were not completely clear.

The students on this team have also taken courses in our schools Networking Academy program. The curriculum from this course work covered hacking and networking security protection. For instance, the student's curriculum taught them how to create access lists on routers and virtual local area networks to protect network users from cyber crime. The research and information the team gathered for this project was reinforced during the teaching of these topics.

1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?

Equipment: Our team used various Macintosh and Windows platform computers. Since the students of this team belong to the Computer Club and Networking Academy program they had daily access to these units. The computers also have a T1 connection to the Internet and this made their uploading and downloading of information more efficient. The students also used a Sony FD Mavica, a MPEG movie recorder, to record their videos.

Computer Software: The team used Claris Homepage, Front Page, Simple Text, Swish, Macromedia Flash, Excel, Word, AppleWorks, Internet Explorer and IMOVIE to complete the content of this page.

Resources: Nova University and Western High School’s libraries were used. Various Internet resources and books were also used as references. For a complete list please visit our works cited page at: www.truthaboutcybercrime.com/workscited.htm Also, over 200 students were surveyed from our school and community.

2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.

Our team has initiated interest in the topic of cyber crime in our school thanks to the 210 students they surveyed. Their plan is to inform the students in our schools and community that our site is available for them to use and learn about the laws of cyber crime. The surveyed student body was highly interested in what they were allowed to do versus what they were not regarding copying software and music. The team hopes that the page will help clarify these issues.

Our team has been working as ambassadors and informing people about the affects and laws governing cyber crime as we issued the surveyed. Technology's fast changing world makes this topic an essential part of every country’s security and diplomacy. Most of the research and cases our team read stated how the Internet has no boundaries and crosses all of the country lines invisibly. Many of the cases our team read about had people of different countries attacking others of other countries via the Internet. Therefore, we hope this page will better educate people of what the outcomes of cyber crime are and make them question whether their actions are right or wrong.

The page will also be integrated as part of the curriculum for incoming students in our school’s Networking Academy program and other computer courses in our school. Two other computer teachers from Lyons Creek Middle and Pioneer Middle School were also very interested with the content of our page and also plan to integrate the page into their curriculum. The team hopes to expand the use of the page to other schools. We hope to accomplish this by advertising in our county’s web page, our school web page, and registering regularly with popular search engines. Therefore, we are making the page a useful computer educational tool for our county and hopefully, national schools.

3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?

As mentioned in the previous question our page will be used in two schools in the area and we hope to expand the use in other classrooms in our county and nation in the near future.

4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?

We need to thank all the teachers (especially Mrs. Vlachakis our mentor for this project) and students from our school and community who helped us distribute our surveys to teenagers 13-19 years of age. Without their effort, this page would not have the impact and relevant information that it has. We would also like to thank our school's Computer Club members for their guidance and encouragement to finish our page under such a short time frame.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

One of the most interesting discoveries about creating this page was how controversial the topics of cyber crime were to all of our team members. We had many different point of views of what was allowed and what was not, especially since issues like copying software and music are very popular in our age group. The page has helped us learn what is right and what is wrong legally and morally. It has helped us understand and clarify what the ethical effects are in cyber crime. We hope that it will do the same for other students.