According to a 2009 AP-MTV survey of 1,247 people ages 14-24, 50% of those surveyed have experienced cyberbullying (Gatti 1). Victims were twice as likely to need help from a mental health professional and were three times more likely to drop out of school than those surveyed who did not report being cyberbullied (5). Given this alarming social…

For over two years the National Dropout Prevention Center (NDPC) at Clemson University has been supporting the Lower Kuskokwim School District (LKSD) in NW Alaska with their efforts to reduce high school dropout in 23 remote Yup'ik Eskimo villages. The Rural Alaska Mentoring Project (RAMP) provides school-based E-mentoring services to 164…

In 2006, a secondary English and feminist studies teacher created a course and designed a study around a reading exchange for eighth-grade girls from two vastly different communities. Girls from a school in a northeastern state read young adult novels and wrote about their reading and related topics with girls from Washington, DC on a wikispace…

Online conversations help teachers engage in constructive criticism and attend more carefully to aligning lesson plans with problem solving. This article describes a strategy for using an online discussion board to help teachers evaluate one another's lesson plans. The online peer-review activity suggests that fostering critical pedagogical…

In the 2007-2008 school year, Jennifer Hunt, language arts teacher for the 8th grade pre-Advanced Placement class wondered how she could harness the power of Web 2.0 tools to develop her students' literacy skills and deepen their engagement with literature and ideas. To that end, she wrote a successful Qwest Arizona Technology in Education…

Today, anyone can publish text, audio, pictures, or video on the Web quickly and at no charge using blogs, wikis, podcasts, and videosharing sites like YouTube. An 8th grade American history class has taken advantage of these technologies to expand student learning. Students read books and blog about them with people who live in different states,…

In this article, the author describes how he introduced a history project that blended a book discussion activity and the use of blogs to his eighth-grade class. Over four weeks, his class participated in a lively collective journal centered on an assigned piece of reading: "Guerrilla Season" by Pat Hughes. The historical novel, set…