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2009 in Review

This has been a very busy year for us at the Cyberbullying Research Center.  We continued our research activities and expanded our outreach and educational efforts.  We enjoyed meeting many of you through our travels throughout the United States.  We did about 50 presentations, workshops, or assemblies for thousands of youth, parents, educators, and others…

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Cyberbullying on Wiki Sites

Recently, I spoke about cyberbullying on Wiki-type sites at the annual Answers.com conference in Atlanta, Georgia.  Let me first say that the Answers.com community (employees of the company and volunteer supervisors and contributors) is top-notch.  I absolutely loved being with them, witnessing their contagious passion for improving user experience on the site, and hearing their…

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Cyber Safety Summit: A Model for Successful Collaboration and Coordination

I was in Naperville, Illinois about two weeks ago for a cyberbullying summit sponsored by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.  The audience was comprised of select stakeholders in education, law enforcement, and technology industry.  The most relevant companies and constituencies were there.  Attorney General Lisa Madigan was on hand to kick the event off with…

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Meep

An interesting controversy has emerged in the last couple of weeks over the word “meep.”  What does meep even mean?  Frankly, it doesn’t really matter.  In fact there are numerous and varied definitions of, and uses for, the word meep.  The most frequent use among adolescents, it seems, is to replace an inappropriate word with…

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Cyberbullying Legislation – Accountability in the AWARE Act

This article discusses two bills currently being considered on the American legislative landscape: Representative Linda Sanchez’s (D-CA) “Megan Meier Cyber Bullying Prevention Act” (H.R. 1966) and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s (D-FL) “Adolescent Web Awareness Requires Education Act” (H.R. 3630). Justin and I are personally a big fan of Schultz’s AWARE Act, because education is the…

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School Facebook Pages

I’ve noticed a lot of schools now have their own Facebook pages.  Here are some examples: Ramblewood Middle School; Da Vinci Arts Middle School;  Lincoln High School.  These pages are generally created by teachers, school administrators, or school counselors as a virtual gathering place to students and staff.  Does your school have one? I can…

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Cyberbullying Limerick

It’s important to introduce young people to issues related to cyberbullying and online safety at an early age.  One way to do this is to have them participate in a fun activity that includes key concepts or practical advice.  For example, we have several activities on our site, including a word find and a crossword…

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Lori Drew Officially Acquitted

Well, it’s official.  On Sunday, U.S. District Judge George Wu acquitted Lori Drew of all federal criminal charges for her involvement in the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier.  As you may recall, back in November a jury initially found Drew guilty of three misdemeanor charges of illegally accessing a protected computer (in essence, she was…