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As you know, we are endlessly working to have our finger on the pulse of how adults are educating youth about online technology.  The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and Educational Technology Policy, Research, and Outreach (ETPRO) recently found that less than 25% of educators feel comfortable teaching students about Internet safety issues.  You and I might ask ourselves – what is the reason behind that?   Is it because teachers and administrators feel ignorant and unfamiliar with the latest forms of Web 2.0 communications?  Is it because educators don’t have the resources at hand to use in instructional capacities?  Is it because they perceive it as less important when compared to all of the other scholastic and curricular material they have to cover during the day?  Is it because they are underpaid and overworked and simply cannot do anymore?  I don’t know the answer to that question, but I think it’s probably a combination of all of these factors, to varying degrees.

Looking at the latest data coming out of our Research Center, we’ve found that among the population of approximately 1,000 randomly-selected teens we’ve recently studied from one district, 48.1% revealed that a teacher has talked to them about being safe on the computer over the last 30 days.  A comparatively small 14.9% of youth indicated that an educator has talked to them about online safety many times or practically every day over the last month.  Maybe most school personnel are just expecting parents to discuss these issues with their kids at home.  Well, it just so happens that we have new data on whether parents are stepping up and broaching the subject matter…

We found that 40.8% of the students we surveyed in June 2009 were counseled by their parents about Internet safety issues in the last 30 days.  That said, more than 1 out of every 5 students (22%) reported that online safety matters was discussed by their parents many times or practically every day, over the last month.  Moreover, we found that 43.4% of youth reported that their mom or dad *never* goes on the computer with them.  This is to be compared with 5.5% who state that a parent goes online with them “often” or “very often.”  With all of this said, it is quite apparent that a very small proportion of youth consciences are being piqued about the tremendous importance of participating in cyberspace with wisdom, discretion, and civility.

I want to reiterate that this is brand new data.  I was really hoping that the numbers would show a more encouraging finding in this area.  The only appropriate response, it seems, is to further dig our heels in and redouble our efforts to educate and embolden youth-serving adults.  The new school year is almost upon us, and there is much to be done.

Sysomos released a report in June describing the “explosive growth” of twitter over the past several months.  We’ve certainly seen an increase in tweeting in popular culture, but are adolescents jumping on board?  Our conversations with teens suggest no.  And a recent account from one particular teen about his peers’ views of twitter also reaffirms this perspective.

Data we recently collected from 12-17 year-olds also suggests that teens are not quickly moving to twitter.  Less than 8% of youth in two different samples from two different school districts (one very large and the other moderately-sized) say they used twitter in the previous week.  This is inconsistent with the Sysomos report which claims that 31% of twitter users are between the ages of 15 and 19.  Or it suggests that it is really 18 and 19 year-olds that are driving the numbers in this category.  It is also important to recognize that Sysomos numbers are based on “self-disclosed” age, and according to the report “only 0.7% of users disclosed their age.”

What are your thoughts?  Are the kids in your life tweeting?  Are you a regular user of twitter?

I just got back from presenting at the Jostens Renaissance National Conference in Orlando.  As I wrote about after attending this conference last year, these folks really know how to have a good time!  The energy was just amazing.  There were once again over 1100 educators and high achieving students from around North America in attendance which created an electric atmosphere.  (The fact that it filled up in this economy tells you how great it is!)  Not only that, but everyone who attended one of my presentations seemed genuinely interested in learning about preventing and responding to cyberbullying.  I look forward to continuing to work with many of these folks in the future.

Justin and I have both blogged about the case where an assistant principal in Virginia was charged with possession of child pornography after trying to investigate a sexting case through the collection of evidence where a student emailed the evidence (a sexually-explicit picture of a minor) to his office computer.  The charges were eventually dropped, and the latest update is that the county school board has decided to remunerate him for his legal fees – which totaled to $167,621.64.  While I think the entire ordeal is highly regrettable, I’m pleased that the administrator will be able to recoup his legal expenses – a nontrivial gesture that should help him as he tries to move forward with his life.  The concern is that the entire ordeal will likely have a chilling effect on the way school administrators and educators do their job in safeguarding the youth under their care.  In fact, that is the general sentiment expressed by the school professionals with whom we share the story.  We have to push through the tendency to do nothing, or pass the responsibility to someone else, or trivialize the potential outcomes.  As mentioned in weeks past, my hope is that when an adult at school learns about sexting evidence, they immediately contact their school district attorney and local law enforcement.  These persons can then thoroughly investigate the case before advising that adult as to how best to discipline those involved.  With all of this said, we have got to communicate across counties and states to figure out exactly what policies districts are crafting (and how they are enforcing them) when it comes to students and cell phones in general.  I feel this is slowly happening with cyberbullying prevention and response strategies, but not with the issue at hand.

For those of you who are regular visitors to the site, you may have noticed some changes over the last week or so.  Sameer and I have been working hard to add and update information on the site to make it even more useful for you all.  For example, we’ve added a few videos to our new YouTube channel and have begun posting updates through our Twitter Feed.  The biggest change you will notice is that we are now the “Cyberbullying Research Center.”  We have been working on this project for quite a while now, and believe this will allow us to do more of the research we feel is critical to better understanding this important problem.

We will continue to roll out more features and resources over the next couple of months, so definitely stop by often.  We are poring over new data from two school districts and hope to have summary fact sheets up soon.  I can tell you that initial results suggest that recent prevalence rates appear to be similar to our earlier work (about 8-9% of students have experienced cyberbullying in the previous 30 days), though the environments in which cyberbullying is occurring is changing (more on social networking sites and YouTube).  Follow us on Twitter for more snippets of findings as we work our way through the data, and check out our new video clips on YouTube.