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This past week, President Bush signed into law a bill that will establish a new national research center for studying digital technology and learning. The center aspires be to edtech what the National Institutes of Health have been for medical research.

From email to social networking to classroom blogs, today's students are online, both in and out of school -- a lot. But there's no one out in cyberspace to make sure they wash behind their digital ears and refuse cookies from online strangers. Given this potentially dangerous void, schools will increasingly extend their supervisory reach, giving lessons at every grade level on netiquette -- call it Online Manners and Ethics 101.

Amends the Harassing and Obscene Communications Act. Creates the Cyberbullying Law. Provides that the offense of harassment through electronic communications also includes the use of electronic communication for making a harassing statement for the purpose of alarming, tormenting, or terrorizing a specific person on at least 2 separate occasions; or creating and maintaining an Internet website or webpage, which is accessible to one or more third parties for a period of at least 24 hours, and which contains harassing statements made for the purpose of alarming, tormenting, or terrorizing a specific person. Establishes penalties. Effective immediately. The new law takes effect January 1st and provides that the Internet safety curriculums in schools will begin with the 2009-2010 school year. The bill allows the age-appropriate unit of instruction to be incorporated into the current courses of study regularly taught in the districts' schools.

What is Cyberbullying?About a third (31%) of all students ages 12-14 have been bullied online according to a study by Opinion Research Corporation (2006). This research paper will examine some of the reasons for "cyberbullying," and what may be done about it.

This district directly addresses a code of ethics about content posted to the web. The content of Arp ISD Website, DVDs, CDs, videos, PodCasts, streaming video sessions, and publications directly reflect on the image of the district and as such must be handled responsibly, ethically, and taken seriously. Publications and media are intended to be used for the communication of school information and the activities of classes, clubs, athletics and other school events. The content of these Web pages and publications follow the same guidelines as the Arp ISD's acceptable Internet use policy. Submissions to the site will not permit unacceptable, obscene, derogatory or objectionable information, language, media or images.

When school starts today, Broward County schools will be armed to take action against you.A new district policy, adopted July 22, allows a range of punishments, from "positive behavioral interventions" to suspensions for students, to sanctions against teachers' certificates for "egregious acts of bullying." Included are cyber-stalking and cyber-bullying, which experts say are becoming more common among South Florida students.

Use this BBC video [4/1/07] as an icebreaker when teaching information literacy and digital citizenship. It will prompt a great conversations about the importance of critical thinking when examining information on the Web. [With thanks to Jane Krauss for the clever idea...]

In alarming numbers, teenagers who think they are fully prepared to make ethical decisions are also driven by the pursuit of success to cheat, by time constraints to plagiarize, and by vengeance to inflict physical violence. This paints a disturbing picture for employers who will be relying on this age group to fill the pipeline in their future workforces. The fifth annual JA/Deloitte Teen Ethics Survey found that while most teens (71 percent) feel fully prepared to make ethical decisions in the workplace, nearly 40 percent of those young people believe that lying, cheating, plagiarizing, and violence are sometimes necessary to succeed in school. Download the attached Executive Summary and survey results documents to learn more.

Trends, Access, Quality, and Presidential Candidate Policies to be Studied in Aspen, Colo. August 9-12

For the last 11 years Marje Monroe and Doug Fodeman have worked to educate schools, parents and students about the issues that affect children in an online world. Their Web site, ChildrenOnline.org, offers practical articles, resources, research, and a monthly newsletter on the topic. Recently, the team, which has a long background in education, self-published Safe Practices for Life Online, intended to show middle and high school students what scams target them and how to use the Internet more safely. A teacher's edition of the book will be available through the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) in November.

Confused by all the clutter at the MySpace site? Look for a rehaul of the MySpace interface on 6/18/08, according to press releases today. MySpace design teams are hoping that the improvements will help attract social networking laggards to the site.

If you're a small business owner, family member, student or just someone with a laptop who loves shopping online and is addicted to your online banking, you might think that you're not a big target for identity thieves, hackers or viruses. The truth is that no one is really safe from prying eyes when they're online, so turn to this list of 100 tips, tutorials and resources that will help you beef up your own network security.

John Walsh, children's advocate and host of America's Most Wanted, will discuss what parents and guardians can do to help protect and educate their children about the potential dangers of online predators and offer tips for safer surfing. Live Webcast. Wednesday, July 23, 2008 1:00 PM Eastern

Cyberbullying is becoming so prevalent in Canadian schools and society that it should be made a separate Criminal Code offense, according to a new policy that will be adopted Saturday by the Canadian Teachers' Federation.

Student work-arounds to blocked sites just got a little easier! MySpace jumped on the iPhone bandwagon, today unveiling an application that will deliver a mobile version of the social network to Apple's hugely popular smartphone. Another reason why we need to emphasize digital citizenship rather than blocking access!

In this 4 week unit, primary students will work in groups of 4-5 to form a business, create, market & sell their product, and track their expenses and profits.

Fighting cyberbullying isn't just a technical problem. We need to educate children and young people to anticipate, recognize and deal with risks and problems as and when they arise. Children and young people will continue to give out their personal details so they need to be taught more about the management of personal information, both their own and other people's. More importantly they must be encouraged to become emotionally resilient in all areas of their daily lives.

The Digital Hero Book Project aims to integrate hero booking into the learning activities of IT-enabled schools in Cape Town, South Africa, and other sites around the world, and put paper-based hero books into the digital arena. The project, currently in its pilot phase, will enable youth in these schools to create digital hero books, and publish them on this site

These flash video tutorials will show you how to adjust privacy settings on major social networking sites to restrict who can access and post on your child's website.

Patrick Woessner's post on Digital Citizenship\nLast week I began unfolding the four "themes" that will guide our 1:1 Tablet PC implementation:\n\n * Information Management and Research\n * Digital Citizenship\n * Communication and Collaboration in a Global World\n * Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Design\n

Excellent post discussing the elements of digital citizenship.

Excellent blog post about the elements of digital citizenship from an educator. This makes a case about what should be done and how.