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.

In this recent story from the West Coast, a 15-year-old high-schooler named Arielle was suspended for two days after surreptitiously capturing video on her cell phone of her chaotic algebra class.  Apparently, the situation was horrible with the teacher unable to control the students, who were participating in paper-ball fights, smoking cigarettes and marijuana, and acting out in other ridiculous ways.  Arielle attempted to inform administrators about the problem, but nothing seemed to change.  So, she attempted to document the madness, and this video was anonymously sent by her friend to the superintendent.  This led to the school punishment, as such videorecording violated the state education code.

This reminds me of the Requa v. Kent (2007) court case.  There, multiple students were involved in the covert recording, posting, and disseminating of video footage depicting and criticizing their teacher’s hygiene, organizational habits, and interactions.  The footage in this case was set to music and edited into a montage, and was done in a way that was crass, offensive, and mean-spirited.  The courts ruled that students *should* have the right to critique the performance and competence of their teachers - and that this right should not only be tolerated but encouraged.  However, doing so in an immature and offensive way was deemed unacceptable, and disrupted “the maintenance of a civil and respectful atmosphere toward teachers and students alike.”

I personally am disappointed with the school district’s decision in the current case.  Arielle informed administrators that her class was basically a joke, but the situation largely remained the same.   She was being denied an equal opportunity to learn in a public school funded by the government and thereby mandated to provide an environment where she and her fellow students felt safe and comfortable.  So, Arielle sought to document what was going on in an attempt to open some eyes and bring some much-needed change.

I think it is weak to blindly point at a policy and claim that privacy rights of the teacher and other students were violated through the cell phone video recording.  I think blanket disciplinary decisions when it comes to youth and technology at school are unwise, because each of these cases are highly unique in their motives, context, use of technology, and ramifications.  I hope that the suspension is overturned, because the policy was probably intended to  prevent adolescent mischief.  Arielle’s videorecording was used to blow the proverbial whistle on an out-of-control situation, and not done in an inappropriate manner.  I also think that this never would have (and never should have) happened had administrators listened to Arielle in the first place when she voiced her concerns.  I definitely messed around in some of my high school classes, but never to this extent, and never in a way that compromised everyone’s ability to learn.  This situation is unconscionable.

In April, Justin briefly blogged about this article from the Washington post entitled My Students. My Cellphone. My Ordeal. I’d like to follow up by saying that more educators are contacting us with questions on what to do in cases where students have cell phones with sexually-explicit pictures of other youth on them.  While the administrator in the aforementioned article probably could have done a few things differently to prevent the nightmare he experienced, I still want to encourage school personnel to hand it over to law enforcement immediately after they confiscate the incriminating cell phone and before they unwisely decide to search its contents.  While school administrators need a lesser standard of proof than law enforcement to perform searches at school, I believe that they should err on the side of caution and let sworn representatives of the law identify and work with sexually-explicit pictures or videos of youth.  Thankfully, the administrator was not convicted on any count, and the entire case was thrown out on the basis of a misapplication of the charges brought by the prosecutor.  The entire situation, however, was premised on a lack of information, understanding, and rationality on the part of the prosecuting team - which makes me concerned about future cases across our country.  If we are going to possibly implement more regulation and respond with greater formal sanctions in new technology cases, we must make sure that those in the criminal justice system with the power to drastically alter the lives of others need to intelligently interpret the Constitution, case law, and *all* the facts of a situation without allowing zeal, emotion, and sensationalism color their actions.

Thankfully, Facebook is soon going to restructure the way it displays privacy settings to users.  Currently, those settings are scattered across multiple pages, and it is a chore for individuals to customize them to their liking.   When we talk to elementary, middle, and high-schoolers, we ask about those settings - and have found that very few youth take extensive time to lock down their Facebook page on a granular level.  Rather, most simply go with the default privacy settings - which are much more open than I would personally prefer.  Hopefully by consolidating these settings into one page, it’ll be much easier for users to run through each privacy option and make appropriate selections based on what content they want to reveal (and how it is done).   Even more important is that they carve out the necessary time to do it - something we highly encourage.  Take the fifteen or so minutes to fully understand what each setting means, and then customize them to your comfort level.  Overall, I am quite pleased about this.

Another issue, though, has to do with Facebook’s soon-to-be-released Transition Tool, which will subtly suggest to (encourage?) users to make some of their content available (or shared to) “Everyone” with the reasoning that friends will find you more easily (which is true).  However, it’s likely this content will also be indexed by Google and other search engines - which is beneficial to Facebook as they try to compete with Twitter as the premier source of real-time information and status updates being posted and distributed by the masses.  However, it’s more palatable for my Twitter page to be found by search engines and individuals that I don’t know at all; it’s less acceptable for content on my Facebook page to be similarly found.  To each his own, but just make sure you completely know what you’re doing.  After all, it is *your* information out there - and it’s going to be out there for a really, really long time.  I’ll share more of my thoughts after I get to play around with the new tool.

The case against Lori Drew has been dismissed in federal court today, as the judge seemingly thought it would be wrong to criminalize certain Terms of Service violations of MySpace and other social networking web sites since users often misrepresent themselves online. (Bottom line when it comes to this ruling is that the law used to prosecute Drew was misapplied (and, frankly, not written very well).  I am pleased about this decision due to its implications, and hope that those who make law and adjudicate cases related to online communications continue to carefully evaluate the long-term usefulness of regulation.  I hope that Megan’s family can somehow obtain closure;   Tina Meier continues to work tirelessly to bring attention to cyberbullying through her experience, and we are in her corner.

We are all waiting with baited breath to learn of the sentencing decision to be handed down this week against Lori Drew.  In part because of the incredible amount of controversy surrounding this case, I believe the sentence will be minor and not amount to more than a proverbial slap on the wrist.  Already we have seen what some consider a misapplication of the law (prosecuting Ms. Drew under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act), and another questionable, emotion-laden decision by the courts in a uniquely complicated case has the potential to seriously and negatively affect how we use and benefit from the Internet.

The article provides a quote that represents and perpetuates one of the most misguided perspectives surrounding cyberbullying:

“If federal law recognises this new form of bullying, police and prosecutors will be better equipped and educated to deal with this problem. Prosecutors, more importantly, will then have the ability to punish this behaviour in court.”

While Justin has covered this in a recent post, I would encourage everyone in favor of this response strategy to methodically evaluate whether more law enforcement, more fines, and more imprisonment are going to a) deter a person’s decision to harass or mistreat another person *online* (not face-to-face) in the heat of the moment b) lead to a fundamental change in the way individuals treat each other in cyberspace (we have so many laws on the books that have done NOTHING to truly improve our bent towards wrongdoing) and c) contribute to a culture of respect, tolerance, empathy, and kindness across all interpersonal interactions.  As a scholar of criminal justice and criminology, I can’t emphasize enough that regulation will NOT lead to these outcomes, and that it is naïve at best and ignorant at worst to believe that it will.

While the circumstances of Megan Meier’s death are horrific, the legacy stemming from her tragedy should not be the creation of unncessary and fruitless regulation buttressed by the threat of unnecessary and fruitless penalties.  Rather, the legacy should be that of an eye-opener that revolutionizes and radically propels forward educational efforts to instruct, guide, and empower individuals (both youth and adults) to participate in online communications with wisdom, rationality, caution, and kindness.