School-Based Efforts to Prevent Cyberbullying
While bullying historically has occurred within or in close proximity to the school, advances in communication technologies have allowed would-be bullies to extend their reach. Cyberbullying – as it is termed – has become a significant concern among adolescents and adults alike. As a result, parents, school professionals, law enforcement, and youth themselves are looking […]
A Positive School Climate Makes Everything Possible
We have a lot of really great anecdotes and ideas from educators included in our latest book School Climate 2.0:Preventing Cyberbullying and Sexting One Classroom at a Time. Below is one example from our friend Steve Bollar, who is a principal in New Jersey. He is an “in-the-trenches” expert when it comes to developing and […]
Help With Fake Facebook Profile Pages
Imagine you receive an email from a friend that includes a link to a Facebook profile. You click on the link and see your name and picture on the profile. But you didn’t create it. And some of the information included isn’t exactly flattering. In fact, it’s embarrassing, and malicious, and ruining your reputation. Now […]
Cyberbullying: Neither an Epidemic Nor a Rarity
Growing public awareness of electronic bullying and harassment among adolescents suggests the need to empirically investigate this increasingly common and problematic behavior. Although studies of cyberbullying and online harassment among young people are nascent, preliminary findings suggest that victimization can undermine the freedom of youth to use and explore valuable online resources, and may have […]
Guidelines for updating your school’s social networking policy
As a followup to our last blog post, we’d like to share some more guidance to keep in mind as you are updating and refining your school’s policy related to Facebook (and other social networking sites). We hope this is helpful for you. Please remember, though, that you must do a lot more than policy […]
Cyberbullying Your Own Kids to Punish Them
Canadian Cyberbullying Educator and Speaker Lissa Albert and I have been chatting about some parents engaging in controversial and arguably questionable behavior to “send a message” to their teenagers about appropriate and inappropriate behavior. These instances have gone viral, and Lissa has done a great job of providing a backdrop of this practice as well […]
Can a School Respond to Off-Campus Cyberbullying?
We discuss the legal issues associated with schools responding to cyberbullying incidents quite often in this space. You can find many blog posts which attempt to clarify the variety of issues raised (see here and here) and we have a summary fact sheet that is available here. Of course the law, and our understanding of […]
Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation Launch, and School Climate!
Justin and I had a great time at Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation launch at Harvard University last week. It was amazing to be surrounded by such brilliant scholars, researchers, and practitioners from across the United States, and even a few from England and Australia. The professional event we were a part of was […]
Facebook Timeline and Your Privacy
By now, you have probably seen Facebook’s newest controversial overhaul to profile pages. Dubbed “Facebook Timeline,” the latest out of Palo Alto is being described by the social networking behemoth as a new way to “Tell your life story.” With these changes, it is clear that Facebook intends to allow its users to do just […]
Parents and Cell Phone Rules for Children and Teens
Apart from asking us “how young is too young for Facebook?” Justin and I often work with parents who have other questions about household rules they should have in place related to their child’s use of technology. We first state that parents should provide their kids with access to these devices a little bit earlier […]
