Ad4dcss/Digital Citizenship

Do school officials have the authority to impose discipline in response to harmful off-campus online speech? Should they? This is a major challenge facing school administrators today. Many state legislatures are now adding statutory provisions requiring schools to incorporate cyberbullying into bullying prevention policies. But this has presented some concerns. For example, in Oregon and Washington, language incorporated into cyberbullying legislation appears to restrict administrators from responding to any off-campus bullying regardless of the harmful impact on campus. Administrators from these two states are advised to check with their legal council. Administrators in other states should understand that the American Civil Liberties Union is trying to use language in the cyberbullying statutes to override federal case law and restrict administrators from doing anything in response to off-campus harmful speech.

A court case upholds administrators' rights to discipline a student who used derogatory language on a blog, but questions arise. In Doninger v. Niehoff, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in May that a Connecticut school district that disciplined a student for vulgar and derogatory remarks made off-campus did not violate her free speech rights.

Like many states, Texas now has state legislation driving cybersafety education in schools. In accordance with HB 3171, Section 38.023, the Texas Education Agency has developed and made available to school districts a list of resources concerning Internet Safety. In the navigation bar are links to 3 types of pages which are for students, educators and parents. Within each of the pages are links that categorize different aspects of Internet safety and digital citizenship to educate and inform.

New Hampshire's effort to educate the public on the dangers of the Internet--and helping parents Connect with Their Kids! about Internet safety.

The Boston Public Schools Internet Safety Website contains resources and strategies for parents, teachers and students to use in order to help promote online safety. There are some great classroom posters here for download.

Virginia, the first state to mandate that public schools offer Internet-safety classes for all grade levels. Nationally, Texas and Illinois are among states that have since passed their own Internet-safety-education laws, but unlike Virginia they don't make the courses mandatory.

Florida's Cybersafety Initiative consists of SafeSurf Web sites for Kids, Teens and Adults and a cybersafety school assembly program that specifically targets middle and high school students to educate them about cyberpredators and personal internet safety.

The Montana Attorney General's office follows the national lead with a web site of their own on cybersafety resources and information for parents, educators and teens.

17-minute parent presentation on cybersafety developed by IKeepSafe and Comcast with Bob McDonnell, Attorney General, Commonwealth of Virginia. The video is available free for all Comcast Digital Cable customers via Comcast's signature On Demand service. It explores the risks associated with the Internet, and teaches parents and guardians how to become involved and take action to protect their children from these risks. It can also be downloaded online.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed a bill Monday outlawing cyberbullying, just miles from where a 13-year-old girl committed suicide nearly two years ago after being harassed on the Internet.\n\nThe bill updates state laws against harassment by removing the requirement that the communication be written or over the telephone. Supporters say the bill now covers harassment from computers, text messages and other electronic devices.

The California Department of Education (CDE) and the Office of the Attorney General (AG) co-administer the School/Law Enforcement Partnership program. The Partnership has funded the Kern County Office of Education for a five-year period to administer the statewide School Safety and Violence Prevention Training Grant. The grant provides for safe schools planning, bullying prevention, and crisis response training. This training program does not currently include prevention of bullying that occurs via electronic communication devices. Need for the bill : A poll commissioned in 2006 by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, showed that one in three teens and one in six preteens have been victims of cyber bullying and that more than 2 million of those victims told no one about the attacks.

The Pennyslvania Center for Safe Schools has released a new Internet safety video: Protecting Kids Online. This 22-minute Internet safety resource speaks to parents and caregivers on topics from understanding the serious repercussion of cyber-bullying to learning how to safeguard our children from online predators.

Kentucky's Office of the Attorney General's home page for cybersafety and cyberbullying awareness and information.

A new state law in Kentucky now requires the state Board of Education to develop disciplinary guidelines for bullying. Under the bullying law, the legal definition of harassment would be changed to include student behavior that causes physical harm, intimidation or humiliation for fellow students. The AB 91 law also says bullying can be done and cause harm to a student through the Internet, phone or by mail. It also elevates bullying to a criminal offense - a class B misdemeanor.

Governor Rod Blagojevich Thursday signed Senate Bill 2512 legislation to help protect children from the dangers of the Internet. SB 2512 requires school districts, beginning in the 2009-2010 school year, to incorporate an "age-appropriate Internet safety unit of instruction in the current course of study regularly taught in the district's schools," beginning in third grade.

The California K-12 High Speed Network (K12HSN) is offering a comprehensive set of tools to support teaching and learning in California classrooms. This free suite of tools, known as edZone, was developed by the California Dept of Education and currently includes blogging, videoconference scheduling and a file sharing system where educators can upload videos, podcasts, images and documents. EdZone is an excellent tool to share lesson ideas, upload student learning objects, disseminate best practices, and more! EdZone will soon be expanded to include Instant Messaging, Moodle, Wikis, Social Networking, Moodle-an online course management system and other Web 2.0 tools to enhance today's classroom environment. Watch for these new tools in Summer 2008!

One of the challenges now facing educators is how to get today's technology-charged student reinvigorated in the learning process. Increasingly, teachers are introducing their students to the exciting possibilities of collaborating online. Increasingly, teachers are introducing their students to the exciting possibilities of collaborating online. Saywire is another commercial solution to the problem of providing a safe, protected environment in the schools.

Excellent demonstration of a school district using deli.cio.us for bookmarking of K-3 resources.

Whether we like it or not, Google or Wikipedia are our student's first ports of call when it comes to researching or undertaking independent study, not the school library. Diigo offers a fantastic way to tap into the way our students operate by allowing the annotation of web pages which can then be shared with your students and, by doing so, you facilitate the process of research for your students and you set them on the right track for further independent study.

I blog about pupils' use of interent, safe searching and the read/write web