EdTech Avenue

Research Study

We need to have a better awareness on how to educate on cyberbullying.  Graduate students in counseling and education came together in this project.  Cyberbullying “refers to bullying via electronic communications tools.”

Seven Types

1. Flaming
2. Harassment
3. Denigration
4. Cyberstalking
5. Impersonation or Masquerading
6. Outing or Trickery
7. Exclusion

Trends
Age: increases in elementary years, peaks in middle school, declines in high school
Gender: girls more likely to be online and cyberbully

Broadband Data Improvement Act in 2008 included Title II “Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act.”

Phase I: Adapted previous survey by Li (2006, 2007).  More than half were aware of someone being cyberbullied most were not reported to an adult.  Slightly more boys than girls were both bullies and being bullied, most happened outside of school, over half were not reported, and situations typically happened on average about 4 times.

Phase II:  Focus Groups to further inform survey data, explore the student views and experiences to collect information to use in creating scenarios.  Found commonalities and put in three categories – Reactions, Knowledge, and Coping.  Results said most cyberbullying would take place between the student and someone they know, and most were due to a misunderstanding.  The most common answer for who they would talk to about it was the school counselor, also stating that they felt more adults need to be educated about cyberbullying.

Phase III: Virtual Scenarios fully “acted out” using avatars in Second Life, based on phases I and II: (1) Gossip Goes Virtual and (2) Mark Visits the School Counselor.  Students watched the scenarios and offered feedback.

Recommendations for parents: understand what it is, educate children, be aware, be involved.

Resources:

• CyberSmart Curriculum
• NetSmartz
• iSafe

Showing video of Second Life Scenario, “Mark Visits the School Counselor.”

Q&A
Second Life was used for the video scenarios to link the technology and counseling worlds, this seemed the easiest place to do this in a place that is away from the true counseling and reporting of cyberbullying in person to make it more comfortable for students.

More scenarios are hoped to be added later.

The scripting process for the video scenario used words from students in the focus group sessions. They reviewed feedback from the focus groups and used data and phrasing spoken by the students to create the scenario.

Focus Groups were recorded using digital audio and transcribed later.

MovieTeacher46.com has a list of movies where bullying takes place to use as a discussion starter.

Thanks to the TIES conference my questions about eDiscovery have been cleared. If you have any info to add please comment.

What I found out: The eDiscovery laws were passed by the Supreme Court of the US in December 2006. This law states that all school districts need to have an archive of email and instant message (IM) conversations.  They left how long this information needs to be archived to the states. Minnesota requires email (with attachments) and IM conversations be kept for 3 years.To read about relevant information for eDiscovery laws go to: ediscoverylaw.com. To see a full PDF file on Minnesota’s laws go to Click Here.

Private Schools: You may be asking, we’re a private school do we still have to comply? Private schools were specifically addressed in the group discussion. It was stated that since private school teachers are still public officials the private school system would need to comply.

What to do? As a group there were a few ideas on what to do being discussed.
- The first option was to sit and wait. There were a few schools that are going to wait and see what happens to another school in an eDiscovery case. At this time there is little enforcement of the eDiscovery law. On top of that court cases involving the eDiscovery law are not wide spread.  They would then implement a solution based on a court ruling. This may not work for you if you’re the first eDiscovery case in Minnesota.
- The second option was to purchase an in-house message archiver. Message archivers can be purchased from most resellers (CDWG and Cadan Computers carry them). A Barracuda Archiver with 1 year of maintenance and updates will run you about $6,000. There are also software archivers that reside on your mail server. These options include the GFI mail archiver. The GFI mail archiver sells for about $2,000 and has a reoccurring annual maintenance fee.
- The final option was to use an online service to archive messages. Gaggle.net will archive messages off of many email systems (including Exchange server and gmail) for around $7 per email box. This covers the collection of new data and keeping it for 1 year. To keep emails for more than 1 year you will need to pay an extra $2 per box. As you can see Gaggle.net would be $7 for the 1st year, $9 for the 2nd, $11 for the 3rd year per email address. Rumor has it that gmail has an option to archive in it’s apps for education but I am not officially aware of anything.

An added bonus? This burden of having to archive emails may have an added bonus for it. You can look at it as having an added, real-time email backup system. If your email server crashes chances are good that you will have even your most recent emails saved in an archiver (with the exception of GFI’s archiver since it resides on the mail server). You can restore the lost email using your email archiver.

There are many different ways to report problems with technology, as well as many different problems to report. Anything from user issues to software issues (is the application frozen or is your computer frozen?) to hardware issues can eat up hours and hours of a technology coordinator’s time. And when the technology coordinator is all you have in a school, that could mean teachers and students aren’t getting the personal attention of the technology coordinator either.

Many schools have formal reporting processes such as problem “tickets,” forms to fill out on paper or online, or other procedures. I have yet to find something that works. I haven’t worked out a system of my own, even after six years, because quite honestly, as technology changes, so do the problems and possible reporting methods.

I take requests any way someone wants to give them, although I do handle them a bit differently, depending on my current status of busy-ness and projects. Electronic methods are, of course, my favorite. Email is great because I can flag messages and set reminders – but along with those benefits comes the inevitable problem of old messages getting pushed further and further down the Inbox list. Windows Messenger is becoming a little more common for us as well. I trained my teachers in using IM for tech support in preparation for my maternity leave in February. I will not be having a sub for my position and have worked out a leave that allows teachers and administrators to still contact me with questions. I also have LogMeIn installed on my main workstation, which allows me to log in remotely to my machine, connect to the school network, and access any tools I would have when sitting at my desk (Windows Messenger, Remote Assistance, files, Remote Desktop). With Windows Messenger, I can address problems immediately and my users are able to see if I am available at a given time (online, away, offline) rather than waiting to see if I reply to an email.

Very rarely do I get written requests, although they do still pop up occasionally. These frequently get lost in the paper shuffle on my desk, and I have to be reminded later that they exist.

My least favorite method is verbal. Not that I dislike talking with people, but my mind ain’t what it used to be… I forget! So often someone will wait until they see me at lunch to report a problem, and there is little chance I will remember what they said once I return to my office. I ask them to email me instead. I realize how powerful the visual is – they see me and then they think of what it was they were going to ask – but the fact remains that while I may answer the question and file away the issue in my brain, the likelihood of remembering to actually act on it is slim.

What do you use in your school? Do you have suggestions that would work in various situations? Do you have any comments to share on what works and what doesn’t work for you? Please join the conversation!

At Blessed Trinity, I’ve given teachers and staff numerous methods for reporting issues, including the recent implementation of Windows Messenger and the Windows XP Remote Assistance application.  It was a huge surprise to me that teachers did not quickly embrace these instant-help options.  Teachers currently use email, phone or in-person methods to report problems with their computers or the labs.  I suppose they are not using their computers as often as I, but the thought that I could immediately see that someone is there and can answer my question without having to send email or make a phone call (or worse yet climb three flights of stairs) would be preferable to me personally.

And with all of these avenues available to them, some problems still don’t get reported to me.  For example:  We are at two campus locations.  I spend most of my time at the campus where the servers and majority of the computers are.  I have asked the teachers at the other campus many times that when something comes up in the computer lab there to record the error in the log I have provided AND email me about it so I know it’s there.  I don’t check that log regularly – it is not a reporting method, simply a log for my reference.  And yet I will hear later, sometimes weeks after the initial problem arose, that something needs to be fixed.  I try to explain that if they don’t email me (whether or not they’ve recorded anything in the log), I won’t know about it.  Unfortunately things have not changed in the four years I’ve been using the logs, so do I need to change something in my methods?  I want to find the best way to service my users.  They become frustrated when I don’t address issues quickly enough but will not follow the methods I’ve given them to get the best response.

What is the best reporting method for your school?  Why does it work for you?