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Media stories over the past year have heightened public awareness regarding cyber safety, teens and the use of information and communication technology (ICT) use. The emphasis of media attention has often been on the victimization and bullying of teens occurring on social network sites such as Myspace and Facebook. The prominence placed on ICT platforms, such as the Internet and Cell Phones, as threatening spheres has resulted in a narrow view of cyber security. Instead, I argue that we need to rethink the meaning of cyber safety for teens and begin a more complex dialog about best cyber safety practices.

Workshop materials here were designed to teach school leaders about social networking. There are both Trainer agendas and Workshop participant agendas here so that educators could easily use the materials to train others. Links to additional support materials can be found on the sidebar/Quickstart section.

Marian Merritt works for Symantec as their Internet Safety Advocate. She keeps a blog and writes a column, "Ask Marian." Her site offers advice about safely using MySpace, YouTube, and other social networking sites, along with information on cyber ethics, privacy, and instant messaging. She also provides resources for parents.-

Boy, 17, posted nude photos of 16-Year-Old girlfriend After she dumped him. When the girl discovered the photos had been posted on the Internet with explicit captions, she contacted police, who asked Phillips to take them down or face jail time.

Another source for the MacArthur video, From MySpace to HipHop: New Media in the Everyday Lives of Youth -- a public forum on how digital technologies and new media are changing the way that young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life.

Experts warn users to be careful about what they post...and download Using those cool little applications designed to enhance social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook can make personal information as public as posting it on a billboard.Trouble is, most students (and educators) never have a clue.

How much are your friends worth? That is the question behind the big debate going on around social networks and data portability. In the last ten days, Facebook, Google, and MySpace have all announced ways to let people access their data (including friends lists) from other sites, except that what they are really trying to do is erect new walled gardens by positioning themselves as the primary repository of that personal and social data.

Eighty-one percent of kids have visited a social networking site such as MySpace \nor Facebook. Yet more than 50% of schools block social networking altogether and \nover 80% block instant messaging and chatting services.

Social networks and digital media are making it easy for us to share our lives not just with our small circle of friends, but the entire world. With the invention of YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, we are creating a massive digital archive of our lives. The benefit of such a digital archive is that we no longer have to rely just on remembering memorable events: There are video and photos of it online. Besides just video and photos, there's also a massive text archive we are establishing with personal blogs. Every column I write for the Courier & Press is obviously archived for the history books, but so are the things that I write online.

A new law aimed at deterring the proliferation of cyberbullying at public schools goes into effect Jan. 1, bolstering educators' ability to tackle the problem head-on.The law gives school administrators the leverage to suspend or expel students for bullying other students by means of an electronic device such as a mobile phone or on an Internet social networking site like MySpace or Facebook; the law, however, only applies to bullying that occurs during school hours or during a school-related activity.

How teens manage their online identities and personal information in the age of MySpace

Released in April 2007, this research analyzes results from a survey of 935 teens (age 12-17) and findings from focus groups conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. It explores questions of teen online privacy protection from several perspectives: by looking at the choices that teens make to share or not to share information online, by examining what they share, by probing for the context in which they share it and by asking teens for their own assessment of their vulnerability.

How teens manage their identity online (63% believe that someone could identify them from the info provided even if they don't put personal details like address and phone).

WiredSafety provides help, information and education to Internet and mobile device users of all ages. We help victims of cyberabuse ranging from online fraud, cyberstalking and child safety, to hacking and malicious code attacks. We also help parents with issues, such as MySpace and cyberbullying.

There are many different perspectives to put on online social networking and it is important to know where one is coming from when talking about social networking and youth. The perspective(s) one has will be very different whether one is a parent with a teenage daughter on MySpace, a marketing executive interested in the target group "14 to 20," a journalist looking for the next big news story on young people and new media, a youngster using a social networking site as part of everyday life or a researcher investigating how young people are using social networking sites.

News coverage about a middle school student victimized by online and offline bullying has prompted a grassroots solidarity campaign. She's received over 1,400 letters of support so far, and it's serving as a teachable moment that no school should ignore. Olivia Gardner was just a sixth grader when the bullying began two years ago. Previously diagnosed with epilepsy, Olivia was tormented by her peers because of the disease. In school, they'd call her "retard." Online, they created an "Olivia Haters" page on MySpace and would use it to make fun of her. The school district eventually got involved, bringing in the families of the kids who were involved in the bullying, as well as holding a series of student assemblies on the problem. But it was too little, too late for Olivia, who soon transferred to another school.

Here's the newest from Sen. Ted Stevens, the man who described the Internet as a series of tubes: It's time for the federal government to ban access to Wikipedia, MySpace, and social networking sites from schools and libraries.

Anne Collier has been writing about Family Internet issues through her weekly publication, NetFamilyNews for over a decade and her thoughtful opinions and analysis of noteworthy events are widely respected. Together with CBS Reporter, Larry Magid, she is co-author of MYSPACE UNRAVELED and co-director of the web site, CONNECT SAFELY.ORG. You can subscribe to her weekly publication. She also keeps a blog with timely updates in between publications.

Months before the newly hired teachers at Philadelphia's Science Leadership Academy (SLA) started their jobs, they began the consuming work of creating the high school of their dreams -- without meeting face to face. They articulated a vision, planned curriculum, designed assessment rubrics, debated discipline policies, and even hammered out daily schedules using the sort of networking tools -- messaging, file swapping, idea sharing, and blogging

How and when social network sites go about such policing of their users is up to them. Do the sites take such matters seriously? Some good (and bad features) of each are reviewed.

Cyberbullying is sending inappropriate or mean messages and pictures to others and/or sharing personal, private information about others through technological channels. With texting and the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, it is a big problem facing preteens and teenagers. There are things teachers can do to better understand cyberbullying and help students dealing with it.