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In the wake of a Rutger University student's suicide, researchers who study youth and the Internet say schools need to do a better job of teaching kids the basics of digital citizenship.

Say It 2 My Face is a campaign against cyberbullying and a protest against anonymous websites that foster hate. The campaign was created by Taylor Audette, a University of Southern California college student.

Teens and college students living the party life have discovered they may have a little too much information up on their web site. De-tagging - removing your name from a Facebook photo - has become an image-saving step in the college party cycle. "The event happens, pictures are up within 12 hours, and within another 12 hours people are de-tagging," says Chris Pund, a senior at Radford University in Virginia.

Many young people keep quiet about online bullying for fear they will not be allowed to keep using computers, says a bullying expert. Dr Shaheen Shariff, who leads an international cyber-bullying project from McGill University in Montreal, said more than half of young people with internet access would encounter online bullying as a victim, a perpetrator or a bystander. But almost two thirds admitted they would not report it because they feared losing computer privileges. Most children thought there was nothing adults could do to help anyway, said Dr Shariff, who was in Queenstown this week to speak at a Netsafe online safety conference.

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.

Congress has authorized a new federal research center that will be charged with helping to develop innovative ways to use digital technology at schools and in universities. The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies was included as part of the latest reauthorization Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader of the Higher Education Act, approved last month. President Bush signed the law on Aug. 14. The center will be charged with supporting research and development of new education technologies, including internet-based technologies. It will also help adapt techniques already widely used in other sectors, such as advertising and the military, to classroom instruction.

FACEBOOK, MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia are considered valuable educational tools by some who embrace the learning potential of the internet; they are also seen as a massive distraction with no academic benefit by others. Research in Nottingham and Notts suggests split opinions over the internet in the classroom. Some 1,500 interviews with teachers, parents and students nationwide showed the 'net was an integral part of children's personal lives, with 57% of 13 to 18-year-olds in Notts using blogs in their spare time and 58% in Nottingham. More than 60% of Nottingham teens use social networking sites. They are a big feature of leisure time - but now the science version of You Tube, developed by academics at The University of Nottingham, has been honoured in the US this week. The showcase of science videos shares the work of engineers and students online. However just a quarter of teachers use social networking tools in the classroom and their teaching, preferring to leave children to investigate outside school.

Just before midnight, an eMail popped into Robert Morris University professor Chris Davis' eMail box. It was from a student. When the student did not receive an immediate reply, another eMail arrived 30 minutes later. By the time Davis logged on the following morning, he had four eMails from this student. "A lot of our younger students using technology are used to that instant gratification when they reach out and ping somebody," Davis said. "But I tell students I'm not available 24 hours a day."

A "digital divide" exists in Canada between young people who see information posted online as private and older people who see it differently, according to a study released Thursday at a privacy conference in Toronto. Ryerson University professor Avner Levin, a keynote speaker at the Youth Privacy Online: Take Control, Make it Your Choice! conference, said in the study that young people have a notion of online privacy that is not shared by business managers and executives. He said the latter view all information posted online as public.

2005 Report by Dr. Beth Manke, Associate Professor, Human Development, California State University, Long Beach. Often the most dramatic incidents of cyberbullying get the attention of educators, parents and the authority. Those incidents that involve threats, particularly death threats and those that result in school shootings and suicide attempts prompt intervention for both the perpetrators and victims. We must remember, however, that all cyberbullying, even the less dramatic incidents including the spreading of rumors and saying mean things online can be harmful as they can erode a child's self esteem and confidence and lead to later academic difficulties, interpersonal problems and psychological distress.

Middle school children who have a television or computer in their room sleep less during the school year, watch more TV, play more computer games and surf the net more than their peers who don't - reveals joint research conducted by the University of Haifa and Jezreel Valley College.

Take this online quiz from the University of Maine to assess your knowledge of online security in the digital age. If you answer wrong, correct answers are given. Suitable for middle and high school students.

Second installment of a three-part video "The Ballad of Zack McCune" from Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
What do you do when you're sued by the recording industry? And how do kids and teens reconcile the law (and corporate interests) with a culture of illegal downloading? Last year, Brown University student Zack McCune was faced with both of these questions.

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

Plagiarism Court: You Be the Judge, This is a Plagiarism Avoidance Tutorial created by Ramona Islam for Fairfield University in the wake of the New York Times scandal where a writer fabricated and plagiarized numerous stories. Although designed for college students, the lessons are appropriate for younger grades.

University of Minnesota study uncovers the educational benefits of social networking sites. "What we found was that students using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st century skills we want them to develop to be successful today," said Christine Greenhow, a learning technologies researcher in the university's College of Education and Human Development and principal investigator of the study.

Research from Northwestern University finds that college students' choice of social networking sites -- including Facebook, MySpace and Xanga -- is related to their race, ethnicity and parents' education.

Teens who build and frequent social networking sites are learning 21st century skills (tech skills, creativity, diverse viewpoints and communication skills), according to a University of Minnesota study. This page takes you directly to video interviews with the researchers from U of M.

Young people today born into a digital world are experiencing a far different environment of information-gathering and access to knowledge than a generation ago. Who are these "digital natives" and what are they thinking? How are they using the technology, and are IT experts adequately responding to them? These questions will be addressed in a new Library of Congress series titled "Digital Natives." The four-lecture series will examine the generation that has been raised with the computer as a natural part of their lives, with emphasis on the young people currently in schools and colleges today. The series will seek to understand the practices and culture of these digital natives, the cultural implications of the phenomenon and the implications for education -- schools, universities and libraries.

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.