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The research indicates that the movement toward Web 2.0 use to engage students and address individual learning needs is largely being driven in districts from the bottom up – starting with teachers and students

Overall, the research confirms school districts are using or planning to use several types of Web 2.0 technologies, but reveals there is still resistance to using online social networking for instructional purposes.

ther key results of the survey include: The three most frequently cited reasons for adopting Web 2.0 technologies are: addressing students’ individual learning needs, engaging student interest, and increasing students’ options for access to teaching and learning. Online communications with parents and students (e.g., teacher blogs) and digital multimedia resources are the Internet technologies most widely used by teachers, and a majority of districts have plans for adopting these technologies or promoting their use. Teacher-generated online content (e.g., multimedia lessons, wiki-based resources) is likely to be the next area of growth in the use of Web 2.0 technologies. Almost half of districts have plans for adopting or promoting the creation and sharing of this content through Web 2.0 tools.

A punch in the eye seems so passé. Bullies these days are traveling in packs and using cyberspace to their humiliating messages online. Like the toughies of old, they are both boys and girls and they demand nothing less than total submission as the price of peace. It’s a jungle out there. For school districts, patrolling the hallways and adjacent grounds is just a start. In the 21st century, a new kind of vigilance is necessary—an expanded jurisdiction that serves to both stave off legal actions and ensure a safe and productive learning environment.

Today’s principals rely on district policy and practice to extend the presumed long arm of the law to off-campus incidents. Potentially, that could mean plunging headlong into the electronic frontier to rescue student victims and thwart cyberbullying classmates who thrive as faceless computer culprits.

A December 2009 study by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society found that students on the receiving end report greater emotional distress, are more likely to abuse substances, and are more frequently depressed.

Lance Armstrong loves it. Oprah’s all over it. Ashton Kutcher found a million people to follow him on it. Heck, Barack Obama used it to get elected president. So why is Twitter in trouble? According to David Martin, Vice President of Primary Research at Internet traffic monitor Nielsen Online, the site suffers from a retention problem. From month to month, Nielsen data says, just 40 percent of Twitter’s users return to it.

Internet child molesters may be the modern parent's great fear but new research suggests this electronic monster is mainly the stuff of bad dreams. Is letting your kids go online the same as dropping them off at the Vince Lombardi Rest Stop in fishnet stockings at 3 a.m.?

I also asked them why they allowed certain girls to be on their friends list when they know that some of them will resort to this type of bullying, and most said because they felt they “had to.” This kind of pressure to allow “friends” on one’s site could also be considered a form of bullying, as they feel there may be consequences to shutting some out regardless of their lack of Internet etiquette.

As a public school principal, I can’t legally discipline a student for cyberbullying actions that take place outside of school that don’t result in bodily harm at school. However, when cyberbullying that has taken place outside of school becomes a school issue, as it did today, we must reserve the right to take action if the effects of outside cyberbullying threaten the safety or well-being of the student(s) in school, even if it hasn’t caused bodily harm…yet.

School officials have the authority to impose discipline if the speech has, or there are particularized reasons to believe it will cause a substantial disruption at school or interference with the rights of students to be secure. Three types of situations generally meet this standard - violent altercations, hostile environment for a student, significant interference with instruction.

School resource officers from across Alabama and the nation fielded complaints about an Internet extortionist badgering girls for nude pic­tures. Victims even created a Facebook page warning fe­males not to talk to the per­son with the username Meta­scape. Metascape turned out to be Jonathan Vance, an Alabama man who made lewd cyber re­quests of 206 girls and young women and attempted to hack into and gain control of their e-mail, Facebook and MySpace accounts, federal authorities say. He was suc­cessful in at least 53 cases.

Apple May Offer Age Controls for iPhone Apps