One of the new challenges facing pastoral care in schools is dealing with the rapid growth of cyberbullying by school-aged children. Within digital cyberspace, cyberbullies are finding more opportunities to express their aggression towards others as social networks become technologically more sophisticated. An important feature of cyberbullying is…

Educators have been increasingly sensitized to the role of schools in developing students' cyberethics, cybercitizenship, and cybersafety, which have emerged as one of the most pressing and yet unexplored areas of education. The Department of Defense has identified challenges to cybersecurity infrastructure as a significant risk for the…

If the word "bullying" makes you think of one child picking on another in the schoolyard, it is time to update your image of how students bully. While the face-to-face harassment certainly still exists, new ways of bullying have emerged. With the easy access to cell phones, instant messaging, mobile devices, social networking websites,…

Most discussions about keeping kids safe online center around two issues: (1) With the rapid development and dissemination of digital technology, how can we stay ahead of what our students are doing?; and (2) What controls are available to prevent students from visiting inappropriate sites? These are reasonable questions, but they ignore two…

The reality of students' cyber lives has thrust upon educators a new approach: creating character education programs tuned to digital youth that are proactive and aggressive. This will help integrate students' digital activities within the context of the communities in which they live, both local and digital. The digital age beckons a new era of…

This article offers solutions and steps to prevent cyberbullying. Schools can improve their ability to handle cyberbullying by educating staff members, students, and parents and by implementing rules and procedures for how to handle possible incidents. Among the steps is to include a section about cyberbullying and expectations in the student…

A basic definition of "cyberbullying" is provided by Nancy Willard, director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use. She has defined cyberbullying as using the Internet or other mobile devices to send or post harmful or cruel text or images to bully others. The advent of social networking has highlighted cyberbullying. Library media…

Technology has changed the school yard or neighborhood bully. It no longer requires physical intimidation to be a bully. In fact, bullying can be done anonymously, on or off campus, and physical size does not enter into the scenario. Every year headlines identify children who take their own lives as a result of being victims of various forms of…

Web 2.0 applications and mobile Internet devices have added new issues to the safety/access situation for schools. The purpose of this guide is to assist school districts in developing, rethinking, or revising Internet policies as a consequence of the emergence of Web 2.0, and the growing pervasiveness of smart phone use. The Consortium for School…

Schools should be proactive rather than reactive to issues of technology safety, and this requires careful planning and policy implementation. In this article, the authors provide information and recommendations that will help middle grades educators, students, and parents to safely and successfully manage the many technologies they encounter and…

Once, targets of bullying had to endure it only at school. Now, with the increasing prevalence of cyberbullying it can follow them home and go on 24 hours a day. For students who have been exposed to cyberbullying themselves, for parents who have either been exposed to it or are seeing their child experience it, and for educators who have either…

Stop.Think.Connect. is a national public awareness campaign aimed at increasing the understanding of cyber threats and empowering the American public to be safer and more secure online. The Campaign's main objective is to help individuals become more aware of growing cyber threats and arm them with the tools to protect themselves, their families,…

School counselors should be knowledgeable about the influence of today's technologies on common issues dealt with in counseling. This article describes several of these issues and how they are affected by use of technology. Suggestions are provided to help counselors deal with the current challenges posed by the use of interactive communication…