more on Cyber safety

I have written a few posts of late on the issue of cybersafety. Di, one of the participants in the Intel Thinking with Technology course that I am running pointed out this amazing site from the UK. It would have to be one of the most comprehensive sites I have seen on the subject of cybersafety, social networking and cyberbullying. As a teacher of students who are have a presence online the challenge for me is to stay abreast of what is out there as well as empower students with strategies that they can use themselves. This site warrents far more exploration and I hope to do more of that over the next few weeks.

Keeping on the straight and narrow

Many of our students have their own wikispace. For some it is their digital portfolio. They create much of the content in class and convert to digital form and upload it to their wikifolio. Some of the younger students create their digital portfolio in powerpoint and all of those students have their own wikispace ( a private one) and are enjoying adding things little by little. Even though all these spaces are private, which means that only those who are invited can see the space, many of the students have invited their friends and teachers to be part of their space. Many of the children also use their wikispace account to email each other.
Yesterday something happened though that scared the living daylights out of me. During lunchtime I was in The Edge ( one of our learning spaces) on computer room duty and one of the Grade 5 students came to me and showed me a couple of messages that she had received through her wiki account. The messages said things like, "I know who you are" and "I'm coming to your house to get you" . Immediately my heart stopped. I thought OMG this child is being stalked or approached by some creep. My first response though was to say that she did the right thing by letting me know and not to worry, that we would try to sort it out. As it was lunchtime I asked her to stay logged on so that I could send a message to wikispaces and then asked her to come back at half time so that we could talk about it some more. She came back a few minutes later and said it was okay because she knew who it was. After breathing a slight sigh of relief I asked her to tell me who is was and after a little bit of gentle probing we established the perpetrator as another student. The rest of lunchtime was spent having a chat to this student and as it turned out a couple of other students who were in on the prank. We talked about the consequences of this type of internet bullying and I tried to help them realise that although they may have initially thought it was funny there were very serious consequences for the victim and for our school. The kids were very contrite and I really don't think knew the possible consequences of their actions. I don't believe there really was a vicious intent. I think however it was a good lesson for them to learn and I certainly let them know how disheartened and frightened I felt. After all I feel responsible for them.
But for me it reminded me that we must constantly be vigilant. It also reminded me about the code of conduct that I plan to introduce next year. Although we do have a standard form that parents sign to allow internet access for their children, we don't have a form or agreement that our students sign. It's an oversight that I plan to address at the very start of next year. In the mean time I'm going to do a little research over the holidays to ensure that I find just the right voice and style. I want it simple and easy to understand, as it will be for all students, and I want it to be positive and affirmative yet very clear about the consequences and reasons for making such a code.
I hope that there are some teachers out there who will be willing to share their ideas or examples.