Ad4dcss/Digital Citizenship

Cyberbullying video by Ad Council. "If you wouldn't say it in person, then don't say it online"

Debbie created the Adina's Deck film for her master's thesis in the Learning, Design and Technology program at Stanford. See: http://www.adinasdeck.com

Bullying middle school program. The pupils at Franklin Middle School tapped into real-life experiences as they filmed "The Stories of Us," a 25-minute movie being sold to American schools as part of a new anti-bullying program. They wrote, produced and acted in the film, which many educators say looks more like a documentary than make-believe. Previews of the two films can be accessed at : http://www.storiesofus.com/previews.html

A series of nine videos on bullying and cyberbullying from the Kids Help Phone, a 24/7 bilingual anonymous phone counseling, information and referral service based in Canada.

Another YouTube brawl earns suspension for two girls. Two Southwind Middle School girls were suspended Monday after their locker room fight was posted on the Internet. This follows similar beatings in Indiana and Florida where the acts were committed in order to videotape the event. School principal Marcia Crouch sent a note home to parents Monday afternoon alerting them about the fight and warning them of the school district's zero-tolerance policy regarding such misbehavior.

A survey commissioned by the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) shows 37 percent of boys reported being victims of cyberbullying in 2006. In another finding, the study determined that although girls tend to cyberbully more often, boys cyberbully as well. The nonprofit organization, best known for its crime prevention icon, McGruff the Crime Dog, has released a public service announcement called "Chicken," which is specifically targeted to teen boys about preventing cyberbullying. According to NCPC, 43 percent of teens 13-17 years old say they had experienced cyberbullying in 2006 and nine in ten teens (92 percent) reported that they knew the person who was bullying them.\n

New safety rules from Telestra aim to give parents a tool in the fight against cyber bullying, with many struggling to understand what they can do to protect their children.Families should learn how to report cyberbullying and to work on building trust about discussing online problems. The article gives five suggestions for how adults can become an internet parent:
Familiarize yourself - talk with your child about their use of the internet.
Explore - websites and technologies yourself.
Restrict inappropriate content and consider parental controls such as filtering.
Talk to your child and encourage open communication
Know - be aware of the potential dangers and know where to report potentially illegal or inappropriate behaviour online.

Although there are those high-profile news stories of how cyber bullying has led kids to commit suicide, most of it is much lower key. High-school-age kids tell stories of how cyber bullying has become a routine part of the world they inhabit, so pervasive that they can't imagine a time when it didn't take place.

Real stories about teens who were cyberbullied. Could be used as discussion starters.

Delegates at a meeting of a national teachers' organization have unanimously voted in favour of urging the federal government to make cyberbullying a criminal offense. Members of the Canadian Teachers' Federation endorsed the policy of taking a tougher stand against cyberbullies at the group's annual meeting Saturday in Moncton.

Excellent article in the June 2008 edition of Edutopia Magazine on the award-winning Cyberbullying Film Project of Debbie Heimowitz, Adina's Deck.

A teenage girl has sued her private, all-girls Catholic school, claiming it allowed bullying to spread from the classroom to online social networks.

Effects of Cyberbullying: New research by a group of school psychologists trained in Olweus Bullying Prevention methods that they have applied to bullying in the digital environment.

Social networking Web sites and other technologies enable schoolyard bullies to pack a bigger punch. Advice and concerns from Nancy Willard and other experts in the field.

Lori Drew, the "cyberbully" mom who has been accused of indirectly causing the suicide of a MySpace teen member may have acted heinously, but not illegally, according to a group of Internet legal advocacy groups who filed a legal brief yesterday in the U.S. District Court in California.

Students are taking a high-tech approach to revenge on teachers - assuming their identities in fake online profiles and putting doctored photographs of them on the internet. The modern trend - dubbed "worrying" this week by the secondary teachers' union - appears to have firmly taken hold in New Zealand this year. It is an extension of the problem of teenagers cyber-bullying their peers and follows the trend of fake profiles created for celebrities and politicians.

Have you ever been the victim of a bully? Ever stand silent and let a bully pick on someone? Most people wouldn't consider bullying a crime -- but it could be creating criminals right before our very eyes. A study from a group called Fight Crime: Invest in Kids concluded that nearly 60 percent of boys whom researchers classified as bullies in grades 6-9 were convicted of at least one crime by the age of 24. And get this, 40 percent of those same boys grew up to have three or more criminal convictions. In other words, today's bully could be tomorrow's criminal.

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.

Kids can be mean.\n\nIt's a fact of life we've all experienced. Gone are the days, however, when avoiding a bully meant ducking out of the back door at school. Thanks to personal computers, cellphones and instant messaging, it's now easier than ever for children to attack each other, often anonymously.