Advances in technology and the creation of social media and gaming platforms have been both beneficial and harmful aspects to children and adults. The benefits include being accessible 24/7, keeping in touch with family and friends, and "meeting" people with similar interests and lifestyles, and in the case of gaming platforms, meeting new people who enjoy gaming. The harmful aspects include being available 24/7, gaming for too many hours a day and becoming addicted to gaming, and making acquaintances with people who one would be better off not having met. All of these harmful aspects can lead to non-stop cyberbullying which seems impossible to escape and which can occasionally lead to a child/adult committing suicide to escape. As educators and parents, we need to keep up with the advances, not only in technology but also with social media and gaming platforms where interactions might be innocent looking from a quick glance, but potentially might not be upon closer inspection. It is our duty to teach our students, beginning in kindergarten the very basics of digital citizenship, and to expand with more information, which is age appropriate for our students while they are in school.
I found the Seven Digital Deadly Sins interactive video to be very eye-opening and interesting. Click the link below to read the short article and then click on wrath to view the cyberbullying deadly digital sin. https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2014/08/seven-digital-deadly-sins-good-material.html#.WjMOYFQ-fBI
I read the "I Bullied a Girl" story and in the left sidebar it notates that about "50% of teenagers have been bullied" and that "Regret Bullying has 2,280,000 hits on Google". Those numbers astounded me, especially the number that searched for regret bullying. Unfortunately, I have personal experience with being bullied as a child, when there was no such thing as cyberbullying and as an adult where I have encountered a few cyberbullies hiding behind their computer screens. I used the block option on social media to shut down the bullies. As an adult, this was easy for me to do. Unfortunately, my cousin lost her 12-year-old son to suicide a few months ago after he was being bullied. He left no note and no answers. His parents had no idea he was being bullied. This incredibly sad and tragic event not only shook the family but also the community. This is why we need to teach what cyberbullying is and what a student should do if it is happening to them or someone else they know. Staying quiet is not the right answer in either situation. This video and story by Amanda Todd really hit home, when thinking about those numbers from above...50% of teenagers have been bullied and 2,280,000 regret bullying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vlfCQgSNM0#action=share This is a video I would share with older students, maybe beginning with 8th grade and definitely to my students in high school. Students need to see the real effects of cyberbullying, and this video and story are relatable to so many students.
"1.3.4 Contribute to the exchange of ideas within the learning community.
1.3.5 Use information technology responsibly.
4.3.4 Practice safe and ethical behaviors in personal electronic communication and interaction." These guidelines can be taught by using videos demonstrating proper digital citizenship and cyberbullying. Lesson plans would contain materials demonstrating cyberbullying through various means and asking the students to underline or mark what they think is cyberbullying from what they have read. This would be an idea to then take into a question and answer period after going over the materials together as a class and visually and/or verbally identifying the forms of cyberbullying via text, chat, and videos using cell phones, tablets, and computers. With older students, role play would be another way to engage students in the activity. I also found several websites that would be useful in teaching about cyberbullying to students, and also would link them to the library webpage so that students and parents could retrieve the information at home.
Additional resources:
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/iftoolkits/litoolkit/safetyandresponsibility
http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslissues/bwad/AASL_Internet_Safety_Filtering.pdf
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/bullying-suicide-translation-final-a.pdf
https://www.freetech4teachers.com
https://www.stopbullying.gov/
https://www.wabisabilearning.com/blog/5-powerful-cyberbullying-videos-discussing-kids
References:
Ronson, J. (2014). Seven Digital Deadly Sins[Web documentary]. Vancouver: National Film Board of Canada.
Standards Alignment. (2019, February 04). Retrieved July 8, 2019, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/standards-alignment
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