CYBER-BULLYING Using Technology to Combat Cyber-Bullying in Schools
Unfortunately this did not stop the abuse and friends and classmates informed her the postings continued and the fact she’d deleted her account only gave the bullies more reason to attack. Janine became withdrawn and moody at home. Her parents say she also stopped eating in an attempt to lose “puppy fat” although she refuses to confirm she suffered from anorexia. The situation came to a climax after 18 months when Janine told her mother she didn’t “want to be alive anymore”.
made then report the comments to the police who can trace anything posted on the internet, even if it has been posted anonymously.” Technology has made cyber-bullying
more commonplace but reassuringly the same technology can also be used to combat bullying or even help prevent it from taking place at all. Furthermore these preventative methods employ new technological developments that can be incorporated in to the curriculum to improve pupils’ IT skills.
Technology has made cyber-bullying more commonplace but reassuringly the same technology can also be used to combat it or even prevent it from taking place at all...
“I felt sick,” says her mother. “No
parent expects to hear that, not from a 12 year old child - I had no idea what was happening. I’d always asked her if she was being bullied at school and she insisted she wasn’t but I guess it wasn’t actually happening at school, it was happening constantly because it was online. There was no escape from it.” Janine told her mother about the bullying and the school was informed. The three main culprits were subsequently expelled and several others suspended but since so many pupils were involved Janine still felt unsafe about returning to school. She is now home schooled and her mother claims she is now a shy, withdrawn and often angry child. “When Janine went to senior school she was perhaps a little immature but she was happy and bubbly,” she says. “Now she is sullen and moody and has no interest in socialising. She is doing OK with her studies but she is not getting the same quality of education that she would in a school and she’s not getting the social skills you get from the classroom.” Carnell says victims should delete abusive content and should not reply to it. “Use any button on the website to alert the website to the abuse or contact the site admin if this is just an ordinary website,” she says. “If threats are also
Technology and Cyber Bullying Web 2.0 tools are the common name for online interactive and document sharing applications such as Wordpress blogs or Flickr image galleries. Using Web 2.0 tools you can help your pupils to be better informed about cyber-bullying, more vigilant for what to look out for, and offer them a point of contact and means of communicating their problems. Below are just a few of the ways this can be achieved:
1. Have a Bullying Forum Forums are a great way to allow pupils to discuss their feelings as they may find it easier to voice their concerns in an online forum rather than doing it face-to-face. The forum or message board can be linked to the school website’s homepage with a member of staff or reliable older student acting as moderator to make sure no abusive or unacceptable comments are posted. Barton says having a discussion forum really helps pupils to open up. “Forum’s are a fantastic way of promoting discussion,” she says. “Children don’t always like discussing sensitive issues and forums are a great way of getting around this.”
2. Start a Secure Threaded Discussion. By using Web 2.0 tools you can also start a discussion thread online. By having one
or two pupils from each year involved in the discussion you can encourage others to email their views and thoughts on bullying at the school and then share them in the discussion.
DEFINITION: CYBER-BULLYING
ChildNet International is a non-profit organisation working with others to “help make the Internet a great and safe place for children”. The following is its definition of cyber bullying.
1. Sending cruel, vicious and sometimes threatening messages.
2. Creating web sites that have stories, cartoons, pictures and jokes ridiculing others.
3. Posting pictures of classmates online and asking students to rate them, with questions such as “Who is the biggest ___ (add a derogatory term)?”
4. Breaking into an e-mail account and sending vicious or embarrassing material to others.
5. Engaging someone in instant messaging, tricking that person into revealing sensitive personal information, and forwarding that information to others.
6. Taking a picture of a person in the changing room using a digital phone camera and sending that picture to others.
3. Develop an Online Reporting Tool Put together a ‘think tank’ of pupils from different years and have them work together to develop an idea for a link on the school’s home page which automatically sends an alert email to a staff account. Staff can then monitor
School Management Today • 37
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