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Teens and tweens have been bullying each other for generations. The bullies of today, however, have the advantage of utilizing technology such as computers, cell phones and other electronic devices to inflict harm on others. "Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying," due out this month, uncovers the types of youth most susceptible, how they felt, who they told, how they coped and how it affected their lives, and illustrates the gravity of cyberbullying and its real-world repercussions. The co-authors, [Justin Patchin, Ph.D. and Sameer Hinduja] both have backgrounds in Criminal Justice and are university-based. Their web site, Cyberbullying.Us is dedicated to identifying the causes and consequences of online harrassment.

Student -created videos telling powerful stories!! D.U.S.T.Y. is an afterschool program for middle and high school students in Oakland, CA. DUSTY students work on computers to create their own Digital Stories, as well at to generate rap and hip hop "beats and rhymes." Throughout the creative process, students learn to master programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, iMovie, and Fruity Loops with the help of skilled instructors. At the end of each semester, the students' creative masterpieces, including digital stories, raps, beats, and performances are showcased in some sort of final event at The Parkway Theatre, The Metro, and other local venues.

In this information technology age, children and youth in West and East Oakland face the additional disadvantage of a digital divide, which separates ethnicities, socio-economic classes, genders, and ages. Youth from low-income communities rarely have access to cutting edge communication technologies or, just as importantly, to empowering uses of them. A comparison between the number of computers per Oakland school with the schools' statewide academic performance ranking, or API, revealed that some schools with high numbers of computers have very low API's. This discrepancy suggests that simply having technology is not enough; rather, to improve student academic outcomes, technology must be meaningfully used.

"In general, the networks connect novice teachers to others in their preparation classes, teachers who instruct in the same subject or grade level to one another, and teacher-mentors to colleagues-even when they are not located at the same schools. The sites facilitate online discussions, workshops, coaching, and collaborative study groups and work teams."

Students, administrators and teachers at Gilbert Classical Academy have a new tool to express themselves that is rarely tapped by schools as a teaching aid: blogs. Blogs have been available on the Internet for years, offering Web users an opportunity to opine on various subjects and post images in a personal journal that anyone on the Internet can read. But schools have generally not utilized them as a classroom tool because officials have such worries as: What if inappropriate messages are posted? What if a hacker steals personal information on a child or staff member?

The California Department of Education (CDE) and the Office of the Attorney General (AG) co-administer the School/Law Enforcement Partnership program. The Partnership has funded the Kern County Office of Education for a five-year period to administer the statewide School Safety and Violence Prevention Training Grant. The grant provides for safe schools planning, bullying prevention, and crisis response training. This training program does not currently include prevention of bullying that occurs via electronic communication devices. Need for the bill : A poll commissioned in 2006 by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, showed that one in three teens and one in six preteens have been victims of cyber bullying and that more than 2 million of those victims told no one about the attacks.

Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers' use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression.
The explosion in social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Friendster is widely regarded as an exciting opportunity, especially for youth.Yet the public response tends to be one of puzzled dismay regarding a generation that, supposedly, has many friends but little sense of privacy and a narcissistic fascination with self-display. This article explores teenagers' practices of social networking in order to uncover the subtle connections between online opportunity and risk. Reprints of the complete article are available for a fee from Sage Publishing.

Sony Creative Software Contest- Winner, Independent Video Category [Cyberbullyiing Public Service Announcement ]

Background info from Josh Borugeois. "I wanted to try and create something that would stick out on a very low budget. I got the light bulb idea from "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." I thought it created sort of an "all alone in someone's head feeling". I wrote the dialog thinking of some of the things teenagers would never say, or never think. I believe there are lot of messed up people online looking to prey on clueless individuals. I thought if I could create a spot that made teenagers being careful look like the cool thing to do, then maybe some would try it. Teenagers like to see a peer taking control of a situation. This generation is all about owning decisions."

From MySpace to Hip Hop, A MacArthur Forum, Part 3
This is the third of three videos, a panel discussion featuring Dale Dougherty,General Manager, Maker Media Division, O'Reilly Media; Deborah Stipek, Dean, Stanford University School of Education; Kenny Miller, EVP & Creative Director, MTV Networks' Global Digital Media; Linda Burch, Chief Education & Strategy Officer,\nCommon Sense Media and moderator Connie Yowell, Director of Education, The MacArthur Foundation

Learn everything you need to know about identity theft, credit card theft and fraud alerts and how to protect yourself. The portal provides both generic and state-by-state information. This resource would be good for a digital citizenship class and includes information on protecting both children and adults.

Digital media technologies offer unprecedented opportunities to help young citizens learn to engage with public life. The Civic Learning Online project explores the question of how informal online environments can effectively engage the citizenship and learning styles of younger generations.The site aims to create a set of civic learning standards and tools to help young people develop effective public voices and sustainable advocacy networks.

Volunteer agency founded in 1997 to fight online harassment through education of the general public, education of law enforcement personnel, and empowerment of victims. The site lists cyberstalking-related laws for all 50 states. They also have a Kids/Teen division.

Center for Social Media at American University. A distinguished panel of experts, drawn from cultural scholarship, legal scholarship, and legal practice, developed this code of best practices, informed by research into current personal and nonprofessional video practices ("user-generated video") and on fair use.

Meridian Education has been producing educational videos for over a decade. They recently released two videos in a series on CyberSafety and CyberEthics. They generously provide a 13-minute preview video clip that is actually quite complete and could be used in whole or in part at training sessions.

As tales of online cruelty mount, districts are trying a mix of prevention and punishment, incorporating internet safety into curriculum and tightening student conduct codes.Whether a pattern or merely an unfortunate streak, what's not disputed is the direction of the general drift in cyberbullying cases: upward. Once relegated to the playgrounds and back lots, the schoolyard bully now finds prey online. While the states are responding to cyberbullying by adopting legislation that mixes prevention with punishment, for school districts the issue quickly turns from educating the community about the threat of cyberbullying to crafting a response when an incident actually occurs. Districts are realizing that integrating internet safety education into curriculum isn't enough. They must also address cyberbullying in their conduct and discipline codes.

Do we all need to be that careful about our passwords? Probably not. But passwords are one of the web's most important security tools. Whether it's for your Google account, your banking center, or your favorite store, choosing a good password and keeping it safe can go a long way toward protecting your information online.

Advice from Google engineers on generating secure passwords.

This is the most recent, and less seen CC video clip translating into simple terms and for a wide, generic audience, the explanation of what Creative Commons is all about. Taking advantage of its free re-use and re-mix license, Robin Good and team have taken the time to re-dub the whole video, selecting a new music soundtrack (obviously with a Creative Commons license attached to it), and republishing on their web site for many to see.

In his article, Thompson offers an exploration of the meaning and application of Web 2.0; evaluates how Net Generation students, who will enter the classroom with Web 2.0 expectations and experiences, will reshape institutions of higher education and their practices; and examines what some of these IHEs are specifically doing to meet the needs of the next generation of students. Thompson suggest that in order to move our educational practices forward, it is incumbent upon us to recognize and react to our changing student population.

Facebook, the world's second-largest social networking Web site, is adding more \nthan 40 new safeguards to protect young users from sexual predators and \ncyberbullies, attorneys general from several states said Thursday.

A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth.
Ben Rigby and Rock the Vote have put together a book for activists, politicos, and organizers called "Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web 2.0." It is a how-to guide to help those who want to mobilize using the web, focusing on how organizers can leverage blogging, social network sites, photo/video sharing, mobile phones, wikis, maps and virtual worlds.

The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program is the most researched and the best-known bullying prevention program available today. * Proven to reduce bullying by up to 70% * Significant reductions in student reports of general antisocial behavior, such as vandalism, fighting, theft, and truancy\n * Significant improvements in the social climate of the classroom and student satisfaction with school life

See Cyber Bullying in the Digital Age. All three authors are clinical psychologists and Olweus Bullying prevention trained. They apply their expertise in this area to online problems related to cybersafety. Dr. Patty Afgatson works with over 100 schools in Cobb County School District, a suburb of Atlanta, GA.