Page 46 - Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century

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Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching and Learning 2021
As with guest stars in television series, students have indicated that they really enjoy encountering one or two of my colleagues playing a role. In one scenario, a colleague played the police chief, foiling attempts to gather evidence from his office. Although originally flummoxed, a hint from me got the team to distract the ‘chief’ and vacate his office temporarily. Such creativity is often required for computer forensics experts who must think on their feet to make alternative plans.
Figure 1: Setting up a crime scene
Equally well received by students in the module is the Geocaching Forensics Practical. Running off the ForenCity (https://foren.city) gaming engine, students log in each week
to receive their updates on how the story is unfolding and/or the instructions to a mini assignment. Figure 2, for example, shows the details of the team assignment for coming up with a set of equipment that one would expect a digital forensics team to bring with them
to any investigation. In addition, ForenCity prompts students to explore the UJ campus (due to safety concerns, we restrict the storytelling and exploration to within the APK Campus). Thanks to how ForenCity is designed, it is possible for me to upload different details for each student. In this way, students will need to work through the clues individually to reach their own conclusions about the case. In the end, the correct answers (Is the police chief corrupt? Did the victim slip or was he pushed?) would largely depend on the details specifically assigned to each student.