The bully you can't see

Many of you will have read in the Age Newspaper on Saturday, March 2007 (page 6 of the “Insight” section) an article written by Farrah Yomazin and Bridie Smith with the title “The bully you can't see…..”. In the article they make some very interesting statements about cyber-bullying. They classify cyber bullying as “bullying that has “gone techno” – from abusive text message and emails to degrading digital photographs, mobile phone videos and teasing or humiliation within the virtual walls of an internet chatroom” In the article they quote adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg (I haven’t tried to find out who he is or if he actually exists) as saying that cyber-bullying is “probably the most important, unaddressed public health issue facing young people today” (They don't state what is the most important addressed issue). However, the survey figures quoted are alarming “A 2004 survey of 13,000 girls aged 12 to 15 by the National Coalition Against Bullying and teen magazine Girlfriend found that 42 per cent of those surveyed reported being intimidated or denigrated online or by text messaging. Such is the extent of the problem that Victoria Police has just appointed the state’s first “cyber-space cop” to track down online perpetrators”. (I can’t find any reference to this cop on the Victorian Police Website but they do produce a booklet titled “Who’s chatting to your kids” http://www.police.vic.gov.au/content.asp?Document_ID=1250)

So if this “cyber-space cop” can’t fix the “problem” of cyber bullying quickly what can we mere mortals do before we push even more social software into the classroom?

If you work in a private school or a private RTO you could just ban the students from using social software like many schools are attempting to do, but as the Age article points out “When poor MLC decided it was going to ban MySpace, within three days there were 16 websites that you go to which would give you software to usurp the school’s (computer) filter” Although, I haven’t been able to find any specific reference to it on the Victorian Department of Education website http://www.education.vic.gov.au/students/default.htm (but they do have information on bullying in general) the Age article goes on to state that “Last month the Government announced that its 1600 state school would have access to video-sharing websites such as YouTube and MySpace blocked in an attempt to stamp out the growing problems of cyber-bullying. The move relies on a filtering system to pick up key words and sequences” Let’s hope they have more success than MLC.

If you are serious about tackling cyber bullying I suggest you start by looking at the Australian Government Net Alert website: http://www.netalert.net.au/03711-CyberSafe-Schools.asp on it you will find numerous tips and PD ideas. You can even sign up for their newsletter.

Netsafe, is the website of the internet safety group in New Zealand http://www.netsafe.org.nz/home/home_default.aspx and also has many publications that can be downloaded. The 2006 International conference held in Wellington produced some very interesting papers that can be freely downloaded.

This is a particularly interesting blog site http://www.blogsafety.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1100000006 which introduces itself as
“Welcome to the BlogSafety.com forum, where parents, teens, educators, and experts discuss and learn about safe blogging and social networking. You might call this social networking about the social networks!”

This site needs further research – maybe a topic for a future blog.