Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

4 tips for an effective digital citizenship program

Today, students are not merely digital natives; they are voracious consumers and creators of digital content both in school and out. This increased access has also increased the risk that students will engage in riskier behaviors online or be exposed to content that’s inappropriate, or even dangerous. How to interact online in an appropriate way, and how to navigate difficult issues such as sexting and cyberbullying, often aren’t addressed in school curriculum, despite the huge impact they can have on students both emotionally and academically if things go wrong.

At the San Juan School District in Utah, we took some concrete steps in an effort to get out in front of the issue. As the district’s HR director and Title IX coordinator, I was hearing more concerns and seeing some worrying trends relating to cyberbullying, hazing, and sexual harassment, including some serious allegations involving students that occurred off of school grounds.

As a leadership team, we recognized the need to be proactive in order to ensure incidents like this would not happen in the future, and to accomplish this we needed tools to help us facilitate better communication among both students and staff about sensitive student safety and wellness topics.…Read More

Gaggle Releases New Cyberbullying eBook for National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month

Cyberbullying is one of the greatest threats to student safety, with nearly 15% of students ages 12–18 having reported being bullied online. October is National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, and Gaggle has published a Cyberbullying eBook to help administrators, educators, parents, and students understand and react to digital harassment. The new eBook offers a fresh and up-to-date analysis of cyberbullying, with additions on remote learning and updated resources.

Available for free, the comprehensive eBook details the importance of full awareness and involvement from administrators, teachers, and parents in order to protect students online. The eBook includes guidance for dealing with all aspects of cyberbullying, from prevention to identification to discipline. The guide also offers an updated list of cyberbullying resources and websites, so students, parents, teachers, and administrators can do further research and learn new ways to handle incidents of cyberbullying in the future.

“Gaggle is committed to student safety at all levels, and cyberbullying is a huge threat to student safety both in and out of the classroom,” said Gaggle’s CEO and founder, Jeff Patterson. “It’s important for all parties to be informed and prepared in order to protect students from cyberbullying. We hope that this eBook can provide students, parents, and teachers with the information and resources they need to handle digital harassment in a safe and fair way.”…Read More

Promoting digital citizenship during a pandemic

When the coronavirus pandemic forced school closures and stay-at-home orders across the country, the internet became a social and academic lifeline for young people. Students are now engaging in distance learning daily. They’re also spending more time on social media as a way to stay connected to friends and family.

This increase in the amount of time spent online also means there is greater potential for problems such as cyberbullying and other concerns. It highlights the importance now more than ever of understanding and practicing good digital citizenship.

Related content: Moving from digital citizenship to digital leadership…Read More

Teachers’ essential guide to cyberbullying prevention

What is cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying is the use of digital media (such as websites, apps, and text messages) to intimidate, upset, or harm someone. It includes repeatedly sending, posting, or sharing negative, harmful, or mean content about someone else on purpose.

Usually, with cyberbullying, there are other people who see cyberbullying happen. In these situations, people can be bystanders, allies, or upstanders. A bystander observes the conflict or unacceptable behavior but does not take part in it. An ally is someone who responds to the bullying situation by supporting the person being bullied (e.g., checking in with them, being a friend to them, etc.). An upstander tries to stop the bullying by confronting the person who is bullying directly or by telling a trusted adult.

Cyberbullying differs from face-to-face bullying in several key ways. For one, it can feel harder to escape because it can happen anywhere anytime. It’s also harder to detect because so much of kids’ digital media use is unmonitored by adults. At the same time, cyberbullying can also be very public: Large numbers of people online can see what’s happening and even gang up on the target. Though the target is usually exposed publicly, cyberbullies can hide who they are because they can post anonymously or use pseudonyms. And since cyberbullying isn’t face-to-face, the one doing the bullying may not see or even understand the implications of their actions.…Read More

How our district uses tech to fight cyberbullying

Bullying is a real danger for students today. More than 28 percent of U.S. students in grades 6-12 experience bullying and more than 160,000 stay home from school each day due to fear of being bullied. In today’s always-connected world, cyberbullying has also become a growing problem. It can occur anywhere and at any time—including at school. Every day it seems there are new apps, forums, or websites that allow students to anonymously post hateful messages and gang up on their peers.

It is the primary job of the education system to teach our children. However, schools are also entrusted by parents to keep students safe. Bullying prevention is part of this and schools can tackle it on several fronts. It involves creating positive school climates, adopting rigorous reporting systems, and educating students and parents about digital citizenship and how to use social media responsibly.

The role of monitoring software
Another way schools can get in front of the issue is by using monitoring software to keep an eye on what students are doing while on the school network. This is where I come in. As the technology director for the West Rusk County (TX) Consolidated Independent School District, I have been a staunch proponent of using technology to support student safety. This includes using monitoring software.…Read More

4 lesson plans on cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is a concern for parents, students, and teachers alike. Once kids go online, the chances that they’ll encounter mean behavior are quite high. In Common Sense’s 2018 study Social Media, Social Life, more than 1 in 10 teen social media users (13 percent) reported having “ever” been cyberbullied, and nearly two-thirds (64 percent) “often” or “sometimes” reported coming across racist, sexist, homophobic, or religious-based hate content in social media.

Lessons on this topic teach students about the effects of digital drama, cyberbullying, and hate speech on both themselves and their larger communities. Students explore how individual actions—negative and positive, intentional and unintentional—can affect their peers and others. They’re encouraged to take the active role of upstander and build positive, supportive online communities, and they will learn how to cultivate empathy, compassion, and courage to combat negative interactions online.

Even though young kids aren’t online yet, early lessons on cyberbullying can easily connect to the social and emotional skill-building that happens during early elementary school. By focusing on empathy and compassion, conversations about cyberbullying can give young kids a foundation for future positive online experiences. For older kids, teachers can help students reflect on their own behavior and build strategies for how to respond when they witness cyberbullying.…Read More

Tips & resources to prevent cyberbullying

Each act of cyberbullying hurts students, disrupts classrooms, and affects your school’s culture and community. So how should you handle it? What should you do or say? And what can you do today that will help your students recognize, respond to, and avoid online bullying?

No matter how proactive you are, the reality is that students may still very well witness or experience cyberbullying. Acknowledging this and understanding how to deal with the aftermath is just as important as knowing how you can prevent it.

Changing the culture of how we both prevent and respond to cyberbullying can lead to powerful effects in the larger community. Rather than simply focusing on the consequences after the fact, we must guide students to understand that they have a choice in all their online relationships. They can say something positive or say something mean. They can create great community support around activities or interests, or they can misuse the public nature of online communities to tear others down.…Read More

Laying down the law on bullying and cyberbullying

October is National Bullying Prevention Month, so it’s a great time to promote anti-bullying activities. Although it’s well known that bullying is a widespread problem that can have serious implications on students’ academic and non-academic well-being, the anti-bullying and cyberbullying legislative mandates districts must follow are complex and can be hard to navigate. To get a better grip on a district’s bullying prevention responsibilities, eSchool News spoke with Tina Hegner, manager of research and development at PublicSchoolWORKS. In her role, Hegner researches and interprets state and federal legislation to help districts meet existing and new requirements.

Q: Who is responsible for making bullying legislation—the federal government or individual states?

A: There is not a federal law that specifically addresses bullying. However, if a bullying or cyberbullying incident concerns a student’s race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or religion, it may overlap with discriminatory harassment and federal civil rights laws such as Title II, Title VI, Title IX, or Section 504. In these cases, federally funded districts—so pretty much every public school district in the country—are legally obligated to address the incident.…Read More

SEL should be an easy sell for U.S. schools and districts

In light of tragic events that have put a spotlight on school safety issues, it’s more important than ever to understand the value of students’ social and emotional learning (SEL). While many districts have started conversations about SEL and its correlation to student success, it’s time to start acting.

The majority of students face daunting socioeconomic and emotional pressures. An alarmingly high number of students experience trauma at home, and their attitudes towards learning can vary due to these outside factors. In fact, studies show that up to 60 percent of all high school students are “chronically disengaged” from their own learning.

Our constantly evolving digital world is another factor that plays into student achievement. Cyberbullying has become more and more common, and a remarkable 20 percent of middle school students reported seriously contemplating suicide in a survey conducted by the Cyberbullying Research Center. Although these statistics are frightening, districts are finding ways to implement support into curriculum to avoid these and other tragedies.…Read More