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Wednesday "Good Morning America" and Internet safety expert Parry Aftab of WiredSafety.com brought parents and kids together to discuss a new, possibly dangerous phenomenon called "sexting" -- teens sharing with friends sexually explicit images or messages via cell phones.

Parenting in the 21st century presents a new set of challenges that require new solutions. Like their parents before them, today's parents have to help their kids navigate school, friends, crushes, extracurricular activities and sexuality. But they also face a bewildering new world, driven by technology and media. In this excerpt from "What Every 21st-Century Parent Needs to Know," Debra W. Haffner addresses what parents can do to help their kids navigate the Internet.

To parents, it's even more frightening than the huge monthly bills teens run up on their cell phones. To prosecutors, it's yet another way that technology has complicated their jobs.

Story of a FaceBook account that was hijacked. The criminal promptly changed all of he log-in information, impersonated the account owner, and sent requests to all of his friends for money. He claimed he was in London and his wallet had been stolen so he needed people to wire him money, ASAP.

Question posed in a high school newsletter: If a school comes across online material that depicts a star athlete or school government officer engaging in an illegal activity, should they merely ignore it? Surely, one's moral compass would dictate otherwise. Students must be disciplined for their actions in both the real and virtual worlds.

Fcebook describes these staffers as an internal police force, charged with regulating users' decorum, hunting spammers and working with actual law-enforcement agencies to help solve crimes. Part hall monitors, part vice cops, these employees are key weapons in Facebook's efforts to maintain its image as a place that's safe for corporate advertisers-more so than predecessor social networks like Friendster and MySpace.

Surgeons 'Tweet' From Operating Room During Brain Surgery

The image was blurred and the voice distorted, but the words spoken by a young Ohio woman are haunting. She had sent nude pictures of herself to a boyfriend. When they broke up, he sent them to other high school girls. The girls were harassing her, calling her a slut and a whore. She was miserable and depressed, afraid even to go to school.

What are the characteristics we would expect to see in a successful 21st century educator? Well, we know they are student-centric, holistic, and they're teaching about how to learn as much as teaching about the subject area. We know, too, that they must be 21st century learners as well.

In a recent incident in which local teens "cyberbullied" a fellow Palo Alto student, school district officials said they helped remove the offending website and notified the parents of "six or eight" perpetrators who are students at Gunn and Palo Alto high schools. The bullying occurred over the weekend of Feb. 28, when some students created a Facebook "I Hate..." group targeting another student. The Internet group quickly gained up to 100 members and included vicious comments against the student as well as some posts in the student's defense. School district officials, who learned of the activity over the weekend, helped remove the Facebook group early on Monday, March 2.

Larry Magid and Anne Collier of ConnectSafely.org have put together HELPFUL TIPS TO PREVENT SEXTING for Educators, Parents and Students. They did a lot of research to pull these tips together, including talking with current prosecutors, a formal federal prosecutor and legal scholars and they include what-to-do advice for parents with kids involved. Getting teens the facts will help with the trend.

If Wikipedia is to be believed, cyberbullying involves "the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated and hostile behavior by an individual or group that is intended to harm others." Cyberbullying has eclipsed sexual predators on the Internet as the number one concern of policymakers, parents and kids themselves

These tips were written in April 2009, after several reported cases of teens being prosecuted for taking, distributing and possessing pictures of themselves or friends. While we are aware that such activity is inappropriate and risky, we do not feel that - in most cases - law enforcement should treat sexting as a criminal act. Except in the rare cases involving malice or criminal intent, law enforcement should play an educational role, along with parents, community leaders, school officials and other caring adults. "Sexting" usually refers to teens sharing nude photos via cellphone, but it's happening on other devices and the Web too. The practice can have serious legal and psychological consequences, so - teens and adults - consider these tips!

This article, by John Palfree, is part of an online symposium on the First Amendment Center Online titled Cyberbullying & Public Schools. The author concludes that there is no easy answer to the problem of online bullying and that the most effective approach - education, with a view toward establishing positive social norms - is the hardest to accomplish. John Palfrey chaired the Internet Safety Technical Task Force in 2008. He is the co-author of Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives\n\n

This article is part of an online symposium on the First Amendment Center Online titled Cyberbullying & Public Schools.

Family Internet Safety Information and articles. Includes a parent's guide to social networking sites.

This lesson helps students understand copyright, fair use, and plagiarism by focusing on why students should avoid plagiarism and exploring strategies that respect copyright and fair use.