BlogWalker

Muddling through the blogosphere

Tag Archives: Cyberbullying

May 19, 2019
by blogwalker
0 comments

Social Media, Cyberbullying and the Role of the Bystander – Change Is Coming

Throughout history, the role of the bystander has been attributed to inciting countless bad things to happen. Today, bystanders are involved in most cyberbullying incidents – with no consequences for their actions or lack of action. Change is coming.

Thursday evening, my colleague Kathleen Watt and I headed over to Joseph Kerr Middle School to attend a Parent Night presentation from the Organization for Social Media Safety (SMS).

Ed Peisner, who founded SMS in 2017, opened his presentation with a short video to explain the organization’s mission.

In response to the 2017 vicious, debilitating attack on his son Jordan, which was filmed by the attacker’s friend and then uploaded to social media (Snapchat), Ed took action. In addition to forming the SMS, he dedicated himself to working with public policy. Within the year, and in collaboration with California Assemblymember Matt Dababneh, Ed spearheaded the passing of AB 1542, AKA Jordan’s Law. The law makes it a criminal offense to deliberately record an attack for the purpose of posting it on social media, and, in some cases, the person filming and posting the video (bystanders) could also be charged.

Speaker Ed Peisner

Peisner views AB 1542 as a step forward for change. But he’s not stopping there. He is currently working on “groundbreaking social media safety legislation at the state level and with local school boards on enhancing social media safety policies.”

In Jordan’s case, only the perpetrator, who did not even know Jordan, was charged with a crime. The bystanders, including the young woman partnering with the perpetrator to film the attack, were not. Typically the perpetrators commit the act of bullying/cyberbullying and recording/posting to social media for the purpose of gaining “likes”, more important to them than the consequences of their actions. Without the bystanders, the attack on Jordan would likely not have happened. It is because of bystanders that history all too often repeats itself.

I recommend visiting the SMS website and signing up for their newsletter. I’m also following the organization on Twitter to help keep on top of the ever-changing social media issues that impact the lives and safety of our students and their families.

I look forward to future Parent Nights and student rallys with Ed Peisner and enthusiastically support the work and goals of SMS:

“SMS is the nation’s first non-profit that serves as a consumer protection organization focused solely on social media safety. SMS protects families from all social media-related dangers including cyberbullying, violence, hate speech, human trafficking, and propaganda through innovative educational programming,legislative and regulatory advocacy, and technology development.” 

If your state has legislation in place addressing possible legal consequences for cyberbullying offenses, please leave a comment with the information. I would love to see a national movement in confronting cyberbullying and the role of the bystander spread to all 50 states.

January 19, 2015
by blogwalker
0 comments

Cyberbullying: What the Research Shows

This week I will be gathering resources on cyberbullying in preparation for an upcoming school board meeting. As I explained in a recent post, school districts in the Sacramento region are dealing with troubling, even tragic, stories of bullying/cyberbullying at a number of school sites. As a result of media coverage on the very real, very negative impact of bullying on students (targets, bullies, bystanders) within and beyond the school day, I think/hope all districts are revisiting this important topic.

As the co-curator of both a district and a global digital citizenship site, I am always on the lookout for new resources, lessons, and research. I really appreciate timely resources from two of my favorite digital citizenship organizations: Cyberbullying Research Center and Common Sense Media.

cyberbullyresearchcenter

Cyberbullying Research Center

Cyberbullying Quiz – What the Research Shows – Professors  Sameer Hinduja (Florida Atlantic University) and  Justin Patchin (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) are the co-directors of the Center for Cyberbullying Research. As researchers, they delve into and provide “up-to-date information about the nature, extent, causes, and consequences of cyberbullying among adolescents.” I highly recommend using their newly released Cyberbullying Quiz to  jump start faculty discussions.  The quiz is short (15 true/false questions) and each answer also includes the supporting research.

In addition to the quiz, Hinduja and Patchin have  published a comprehensive Cyberbullying Fact Sheet that is written for educators, administrators, and parents. If you are looking for a professionally done handout for a Parent Night, I’d recommend the Fact Sheet.

csmlogo

Common Sense Media, although not solely focused on cyberbullying, is also constantly updating and adding to their resources. The awesome Kelly Mendoza, director of program development for Common Sense Media’s education programs, recently hosted a webinar with Dr. Elizabeth Englander, professor of psychology at Bridgewater State University: Cyberbullying, Sexting, and Social Media Use. Both the audio and the video are excellent – as is the content! I learned a few new terms from Dr. Englander, such as self-cyberbullying:

“Another issue that is a little peculiar that you may have never heard of is something called self-cyberbullying. This is a problem where kids essentially go online, they create a second persona online, and they use their second identity to cyberbully their first identity themselves. And then they take evidence of this to either their friends or to adults, and they say essentially ‘see, I’m being cyberbullied.’ It’s one of these issues that I thought was going to be very rare. However, we’ve been tracking it for three years now, and we’ve found that about 15 percent of kids admit to doing this.”

Dr. Englander is also the director and founder of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center, or MARC, “an academic Center in public higher education, committed to a public health model for bullying and cyberbullying prevention for the state of Massachusetts.” MARC’s K-12 cyberbullying “evidence-based” curriculum looks excellent, including their videos. I will definitely be sharing the K-5 video, Meanness Is Like Littering, with my district community:

Dr. Englander also champions the Great American No Bull Challenge, which includes wonderful student-created videos such as Numbskull:

 

In addition to cyberbullying research, lessons, and videos,  I am hoping to add links to printable posters to cyberbullying my cyberbullying resources. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

 

November 25, 2012
by blogwalker
0 comments

#UnfollowBullying – Recognizing the Power of Student-Created Content

T-shirt signing at Florin HS

If you are planning to submit nominations for the 2012 Edublogs Awards, I hope you will consider #UnfollowBullying as a candidate for the Best Twitter Hashtag category. #UnfollowBullying, a student-created, student driven initiative, is “in recognition that students are the ones who will lead the charge in their online communities to ensure that all students are treated with respect and kindness.” Past winners in the Best Twitter Hashtag category have (simply) created a stand alone hashtag. One of the many distinguishing features of #UnfollowBullying is that the hashtag comes with a dynamic online student toolkit to help students everywhere stand up, speak out and be the change.

Wall signing at Ed Harris MS

Almost a year ago, NWP colleague Natalie Bernasconi and I began creating and co-curating the Digital ID wiki. Initially a collaborative project for gathering digital citizenship resources and best practices, the project has evolved into a platform and global microphone for student-created content.

This week, we will begin showcasing student content from #UnfollowBullying. Yes, this student-led campaign is from my school district, and in my role as a tech integration specialist, I am supporting the project. But the evolution of this project has been dynamically student-driven and is resulting in some amazing samples of students addressing and crafting the topic of cyberbullying in ways that challenge issues at their own school sites. From T-shirt signing events, to wall signing events, to newscasts, the students are broadcasting across the district and beyond a call to action.

 Note: Be sure to listen to the entire newscast to learn about the many ways Toby Johnson Middle School students are challenging cyberbullying.

What Natalie and I have witnessed over and over through our respective teaching assignments (Natalie, middle school ELA/AVID teacher; Gail, K-12 tech integration specialist) is that, although teachers play a pivotal role in initiating the shared conversations on the ethical use of the Internet and social media, it is students who must lead the charge in confronting cyberbullying.

What makes the #UnfollowBullying campaign so likely to have an impact on how students regard both their rights and  their responsibilities as (digital) citizens is that all sites across my district will be rolling out a digital citizenship curriculum (mainly from Common Sense Media), ensuring that, with teachers joining in, a week-long campaign can continue on throughout the school year, woven in multiple ways into advisory periods, computer lab classes, and, most exciting, into the core curriculum.

As National Writing Project Teacher Consultants, Natalie and I have a deep respect for the model of teachers teaching teachers. In our daily work with students, however, we stand back in awe at the power of students teaching students. It is truly the full circle of digital citizenship.

We hope you will join us in nominating #UnfollowBullying for a 2012 Edublogs Award!

P.S.  For more information about the Digital ID project and ideas on weaving digital citizenship into the curriculum, please visit our 2012 K12Online Conference presentation.

October 14, 2012
by blogwalker
0 comments

Teaching Resilience – How parents & teachers can help stop cyberbullying

The most painful parts of watching Netsmartz‘s powerful video Your Photo Fate are the last three clips, where we watch the facial expressions change on the boy who is a target of cyberbullying, followed by the his mother’s fallen expression, and his father’s heart-sick look.

In my job as a district technology integration specialists, I am often invited to give parent workshops on digital citizenship, with cyberbullying being the topic parents most want to discuss. I’m grateful to be able to direct parents to excellent free online resources, such as Common Sense Media’s Standing Up, Not Standing By – Cyberbullying Kit for PTA leaders. The kit includes one of my favorite tip sheets for parents, providing  both background on cyberbullying and boiling it down to five essential tips to prevent cyberbullying before it happens:

Teach your kids empathy. Nothing drives home a point faster than walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. If your kids truly understand what someone else is going through, they’re less likely to bully someone — or passively witness others being bullied.

Help kids understand the line between funny and cruel. Kids’ online communication is often purposely ambiguous or accidentally cruel — both of which can lead to misunderstandings. If drama starts brewing, ask your kid to call or speak face to face with their friend to clear it up.

Make sure they talk to someone (even if it’s not you). As kids enter the middle school years, their circle of friends and trusted adults widens. Kids need a responsible adult to confide in — their school counselor, their music teacher, even the parent of a friend.Talk to your kid about who they can go to if trouble is brewing.

Help your kid be an upstander — not a bystander. Kids are hesitant to get involved, in case the bully turns their sights on them. But there are ways to allow your kid to work behind the scenes to reach out to the victim, get an adult involved, and prevent more cruel behavior.

Show your kid how to stop it. Tell kids not to respond or retaliate. Not feeding the bully can stop the cycle. And — if anything does happen — save the evidence.”

This morning, thanks to an email from Natalie Bernasconi  (Digital-ID co-curator), I read Esther Cepeda’s Defining ‘bullying’ Down article.  Just as Common Sense Media has articulated the importance of teaching empathy, Cepeda identifies an equally key concept parents – and educators – should be promoting: resilience.

More and more scientific evidence is pointing to resiliency — the ability to overcome adversity by using learned personal strengths such as independence, initiative, creativity and humor — as a key factor in reducing risky behaviors and increasing academic achievement in adolescents.

But we don’t teach resiliency in schools. Instead, society consistently reinforces the notion that every slight, every discomfort, every put-down or rejection is worthy of an outpouring of sympathy for a wronged victim. We’re teaching that mantra in schools and in workplace harassment seminars, and it encourages people who feel uncomfortable to turn on a perceived oppressor.

Guess who this harms? Not those who crave attention, sympathy or the spotlight, but the quiet among us who haven’t yet found a way to stand up to the honest-to-goodness bullies in their lives”

In looking over the Digital ID project’s Digital Citizenship Glossary, we have defined empathy (Common Sense Media’s first tip), but not resilience. My goal this week is to add not only the definition (text and audio file), but also find a short video or two to make this abstract concept more tangible.

Natalie and I came together as co-creators and curators of the Digital ID project through as long-time affiliation with the National Writing Project and our 2011 participation in the Krause Center for Innovation’s MERIT program.  As educators, we are both committed to teaching for social justice, and, therefore, frequently ask ourselves and colleagues, “How do you teach resilience?”  If you visit the Curriculum Collaborations page on the Digital ID wiki, you will see that we believe one important step is to provide our students with many samples, both fiction and non-fiction, of heroism and survival.  And from there, the next step is help students see how the ability of real-life or fictional characters to actively take steps to overcome often insurmountable challenges might help them deal with the very real challenges so many of them face before, during, and after school hours.

Any suggestions for short videos or other resources for teaching about resilience would be much appreciated!

November 4, 2011
by blogwalker
0 comments

Digital Citizenship Summit – Thank you, Yahoo!

Yahoo Safely Digital Citizenship Summit

Besides the really cool Yahoo book bag and equally cool Yahoo lunch bag, what else was great about the 5th Annual Digital Citizenship Summit? Everything, including:

  • The panel of speakers: Experts from Project Cornerstone, Reachout.com, Common Sense Media, iKeepSafe, NetSmartz, Connect Safely, and attorney Charles Leitch. Throughout the day, this outstanding team guided whole group and small group discussions on how to successfully implement the elements of the “Five Building Blocks for Digital Citizenship:”
    1. Build a culture of ethics and safety
    2. Implement a network of support and leadership
    3. Align policies and procedures
    4. Provide professional development
    5. Integrate student curriculum for safety and ethics
  • The highly enthusiastic, participatory group of participants
  • Yahool headquarters

The speakers, panel discussions, and breakout sessions affirmed much of the digital citizenship work I’ve been doing over the past few years through my district’s Internet Safety Task Force. But one speaker caused me to rethink our approach to teaching about cyberbullying.  Larry Magid highly suggested, and backed it with the research, that we approach cyberbullying as a problem rather than an epidemic. Larry is co-director of ConnectSafely.org and founder of SafeKids.com.  He is also the technology analyst for CBS News and writes for CNET News, Huffington Post and the San Jose Mercury News. Along with Anne Collier, he is co-author of A Parents’ Guide to Facebook and MySpace Unraveled.

Much like the “stranger danger” predator panic of 2004-2006, the media is now hyping big time incidents of cyberbullying.  The reality is that far more kids are bullied offline than online.  Larry pointed out the dangers of exaggeration, which can destroy credibility, can cause “boomeranger effect,”  and can cause people to believe that behaviors are “normal.”  His recommendation is to stop the  “fear messaging” and to emphasize the positive.

People, especially youth, can benefit from positive images and role models. Creating a culture of respect actually can lead to respect. Respectful behavior truly is normal.  Most kids do not bully.

Use ‘positive norming,’ such as the Craig, Perkins 2008 – Strength in Numbers report – 80% of Crystal Lake 6-8th grade students say students should not tease in a mean way, call others hurtful names, or spread unkind stories about other students.”

I’m hoping to go live with Larry’s “positive norming” concept at several of our middle schools by having students participate in Nancy Willard’s Cyberbullying Survey. But that’s a topic for another post;-)

I’ll end this post with a huge thank you to the Yahoo Safely team for hosting the Digital Citizenship Summit and to Diana Paradise for being the guiding light of the event – and with a closing question: What if districts approached the topic of cyberbullying as a problem, not and epidemic?

 

October 1, 2011
by blogwalker
0 comments

Cyberbullying – Resources for an October Campaign

October is National Bullying Prevention Month.  What’s happening at your sites this month – and throughout the year – to help students “be the change” and stand up against bullying and cyberbullying?

If your district is like mine, then I’m guessing that cyberbullying is a huge issue, starting at the elementary level, escalating exponentially in middle school, and continuing on into high school as a colossally destructive force.

As part of my job (tech integration specialist), I do Internet safety workshops for parents. During a cyberbullying session last week at an elementary site, a parent confronted the principal with an incident that had happened during the school day.  The parent was taking care of a 3rd grader (not her own child), who stayed home due to illness. The child received a mean-spirited text message, with extremely inappropriate language, sent from a classmate – during recess time. (And, yes, we do have a “no cell phones during the school day district policy.”) At our middle schools, a huge chunk of a counselor’s day is spent dealing with cyberbullying issues – with sexting increasingly the seed for incidents that can so quickly spiral out of control. Facebook “burn pages” at our high schools pop up just as quickly as an administrator is able to have one removed.

OK, so from primary grades through high school, we have a problem. Fortunately, the resources for educators to bring cyberbullying into the school day and right into the core curriculum are plentiful, excellent, and growing. Here are some of my current favorites:

Common Sense Media – Free, age-appropriate, thematically grouped, and updated almost weekly, an outstanding resource for teachers – and parents too. Let’s take the Connected Cultures lesson Group Think (for grades 4-5) for an example.  The essential question for this lesson is “How can you be an upstander when you witness cyberbullying?” I truly believe every classroom in the universe should be having conversations around this question.

Common Sense makes it easy to include parents in the conversations and activities. Like all of their lessons, Group Think includes PDF printouts for the lesson – along with parent resources, such as Cyberbullying Parent Tips, Digital Citizeship Parent Letter, and a Connected Culture Parent Video.

NetSmartz – I value and appreciate all the resources provided by NetSmartz (sponsored by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children), especially the Teens Real-Life Stories collection of videos based on actual experiences. It’s the emotional impact of stories such as You Can’t Take It Back and Cyberbullying: A Broken Friendship that I’ve watched draw in middle schoolers – and their parents.

National Holocaust education organizations – In recognition that “It’s small things that set bigger things off” (Sam Edelman), the organizations below have created some wonderful anti-bullying classroom resources.

  • Museum of Tolerance – Anti-Bullying PSA: The Price of Silence – A great snippet (cell-phone style) of a schoolyard fight scene. Students will easily pick out the obvious victim, the bully, the bystanders, and upstander(s).  It’s a good piece for talking about when kids have that gut feeling something is not OK,  that they’d like to step across the line – or at least step away – but haven’t the courage or skill set to do so (yet). Appropriate for elementary through middle school.
  • Facing History and Ourselves – As a long-time fan of Facing History and Ourselves, a site and organization dedicated to “helping classrooms and communities worldwide link the past to moral choices today,”  I was thrilled to discover their new resource: Ostracism and Bullying: An Online Case Study for Educators. If you’re not familiar with Facing History, here’s a quick window into their work:

National research organizations:

  • Cyberbullying Research Center – The site is ” dedicated to providing up-to-date information about the nature, extent, causes, and consequences of cyberbullying among adolescents.” But it’s more than just legal information. From the downloadable activity sheets, scenarios, and quizzes to videoclip presentations from researchers Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin that are perfect for sharing with staff and parents, this is an excellent resource for better understanding the causes and consequences of cyberbullying.
  • Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use – CSRIU Dirctor Nancy Willard, a regular presenter at ISTE conferences, deserves a medal for the Cyberbullying Survey she has created and posted with an invitation for educators to copy and tweak as needed. The PDF even includes a parent letter. I truly believe the survey could have a significant positive impact at school sites.  As she explained in a recent interview,

“The basic format I am now recommending is that you survey students at the school location about their standards and why they adhere to these standards. Schools will find that the vast majority of students are making positive choices. Then you tell students what the majority of their peers are saying – and this should result in a greater number of them choosing to make positive choices.”

I really like Nancy’s suggestion of sharing the results on posters placed visibly around a school site.  The survey questions are geared for middle and high school, but could be adapted for upper elementary grades tool.

Do you have cyberbullying resources you recommend? If so, please jump in and leave a comment. With input from readers, I hope to add to this list throughout the month.   I’d like to include a section with links to  lessons from the core curriculum into which teachers are weaving cyberbullying connections.  Getting students to see that they need to be the change means continuing conversations, lessons, activities, and campaigns across the school year and beyond the school day.

July 3, 2011
by blogwalker
0 comments

ISTE Day 4: Facing History & Ourselves – Ostracism & Bullying

I’ve been a long-time fan of Facing History and Ourselves, a site and organization dedicated to “helping classrooms and communities worldwide link the past to moral choices today,” so I was thrilled to find a seat in their Tuesday session: Ostracism and Bullying: An Online Case Study for Educators. If you’re not familiar with Facing History, here’s a quick window into their work:

John Englander opened session with the statement that ostracism and bullying are affecting kids’ opportunities to learn in a safe environment. His opening activity was to turn to someone and think/pair/share and “reflect on a time in your adolescence/youth when you saw, heard or experienced bullying.” It’s one of those 100% inclusive topics, so we quickly and easily delved into small group and then a whole group discussion.

An interesting point raised by John is that “elementary students think standing up to a bully is cool; by middle school, students no longer think it’s cool. He also shared research by Catherine Bradshaw (Johns Hopkins University) showing that kids believe that teachers who try to stop bullying only make it worse.

We then moved on to Facing History’s amazing new resource: Bullying: A Case Study in Ostracism. The study evolved as part of research conducted by Harvard and Facing History and Ourselves and with funding from the Carnegie Corporation. At the heart of the project is a collection interviews with five girls around a simple problem that began in 7th grade and quickly escalated into a complicated and serious ostracism issue. (Click here for an overview of the project.)

After a brief introduction and tour of the site, John invited us to do a jigsaw activity with groups picking one case study to listen to and to then share out some of the experts who’ve reflected on study – many provocative thoughts! My partner and I picked Sue’s case, starting with the audio file, which comes complete with a verbatim transcription. We moved on to listen to the case study review – the classic, snowballing effect, so typical of middle school bullying scenarios.

Facing History’s Ostracism & Bullying case study and accompanying resources is one of my best ISTE 2011 take-aways – a resource I’ll be sharing with district colleagues as we come together this summer in search of online resources and assistance with the horrific issues of cyberbullying that currently occupy well over 50% of our middle school counselors’ case loads – and so quickly spiral out of control, negatively and too often disastrously impacting the lives of our students.

Thank you, Facing History visionaries, for providing this beautifully constructed/scaffolded resource!

September 20, 2008
by blogwalker
2 Comments

Childnet International – UK resource for kids, parents, teachers

I’m impressed with the U.K. Childnet International resources, including their links and PDF brochures on Young People, Music and the Internet and Young People and Social Networking. Nice handouts for parents – teachers too- to provide common sense guidelines for safe, effective, ethical use of the Internet.

The resources on their digizen.org link are equally excellent. The intro sums up their mission:

Digital citizenship isn’t just about recognising and dealing with online hazards. It’s about building safe spaces and communities, understanding how to manage personal information, and about being internet savvy – using your online presence to grow and shape your world in a safe, creative way, and inspiring others to do the same.”

Digizen’s Cyberbullying resources also include a powerful video that I’m sure would spark classroom conversations, starting with the reality that kids in the U.K., just like in our school districts, are having to deal with 24/7 cyberbullying challenges.

March 27, 2008
by blogwalker
2 Comments

On the Internet, “nobody knows you’re a dog”

This post is in response to Anne Mirtschin‘s request for cybersafety resources for students. I’m currently out of the classroom, but for the past two years I’ve been teaming with our district webmaster to provide Internet safety workshops for teachers and administrators, who during the course of the 2-hour session often swap their teacher hats for their parent hats. Fortunately, the resources for students, teachers, and parents are plentiful and growing.

Here’s the opening slide from our PowerPoint. I like to start with the humor of the New Yorker cartoon*, quickly transitioning into the implications and realities of “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” by showing the Trevor’s Story video.

isafety2.gif

I’ll be adding Anne’s post as an example of how an elementary teacher prepares students for safe travels across the information highway.

Here are my top 10 Internet safety resources:

  1. i-Safe – Sponsored by the US Dept. of Justice, i-Safe offers free online training and certification as an iSafe instructor, parent, or mentor. It takes about 5 hours to complete the certification, after which you’ll be familiar with all the iSafe resources, including the classroom lesson resources they’ll send in hardcopy.
  2. iKeepSafe.org – Keep scrolling down the parent resource page and you’ll find excellent videos, including the What You Need to Know video. If I could direct parents to only one resource, it would be this video. It clearly explains the dangers of the Internet AND also makes a clear case for why Web 2.0 tools are important for 21st century students.
  3. Pete Reilly’s article Facts about Sex Abuse and Schools – In addition to the stats that make clear that school is NOT where online predators are meeting up with students, I love his opening words: “In education circles the magical mantra has been ’student safety.’ The fear of online predators has been used to curtail, restrict, and prohibit the use of some of the most promising online educational technology tools. …” and his closing words: “As educational leaders we need to be safety conscious. We need to be prudent, reasonable; but we won’t live in fear and we won’t act from fear. It is by opening doors, not closing them, that we create new possibilities for our children and new futures for ourselves.”
  4. Statistics from the Pew Internet and American Life Project – Why would a district block blogging, for instance, when the stats show that “Some 93% of teens use the internet, and more of them than ever are treating it as a venue for social interaction – a place where they can share creations, tell stories, and interact with others.”
  5. Ideas for Integrating Internet Safety into the Curriculum – Kudos to the Virginia Department of Education for providing a model of how to align ideas for addressing Internet safety in the context of their state content standards for students.
  6. Elk Grove Unified’s growing bank of resources – We continue to add resources and plan to reorganize soon by k-3, 4-6, 7-8, and 9-12 categories. Really, we were planning to do this before finding Virginia’s site:-)

7 – 10 Cyberbullying recourses – While we are certainly concerned about protecting students from online predators, the main focus of our program is to educate workshop participants about this heinous problem of cyberbullying, which unlike the old days when a bullied student could escape taunts once the school day ended, we recognize the seriousness and heart-wrenching consequences of 27/7 cyberbullying:

  • NetSmartz’ Real Life Stories -My favorite video is Broken Friendship.
  • Stop Cyberbullying – Provides excellent background information
  • Spirit Desk’s Hero in the Hallway – This video is truly a K-12 resource. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the video link.

*Cartoon by Peter Steiner. The New Yorker, July 5, 1993 issue (Vol.69 (LXIX) no. 20) page 61

February 19, 2008
by blogwalker
2 Comments

New Resources for Digital Citizenship – Get 3/Give 1

I really like the way the CTAP4 folks have organized resources for learning about and teaching all aspects of digital citizenship. They’ve included links to PowerPoints, workshop wikis, and even this wonderful poster. I think much of the credit for this valuable website goes to at&t’s Linda Uhrenholt.

miniposter_ctap4.jpg

I also appreciate Doug Johnson’s sharing his Cyberbullying and How to Avoid It student guide and poster – and Nancy Willard’s willingness to allow him to incorporate information from her website.  Doug will send the Word version to educators wanting to adapt the guide to meet their school or district’s guidelines.

And for our elementary students, I like McGruff’s Shrink the Cyberbully activity.

OK, in appreciation of all who are contributing resources to promote digital citizenship, I have one to give.  Many of the teachers and administrators attending my iSafety workshop ask for additional explanations of some the terminology that comes with Web 2.0.  I’ve been working with our district webmaster, who co-teaches the iSafety workshop, on developing a Cyberspace Glossary.  I can send the Word version to anyone who wants to tailor it for their own site.

Skip to toolbar