Cyber bullying - Logan Perkins

Cyber Bullying 

By: Logan Perkins 

Ricardi, Ken. (September 1st 2008.) Cyber bullying: Responsibilities and Solutions. Retrieved February 23rd 2016, from www.techlearning.com  http://www.techlearning.com/news/0002/cyber-bullying-responsibilities-and-solutions/65317  

Summary: The article is laid out with different sections entitled What is Cyber bullying, prevalence of cyber bullying, legal considerations, and finally solutions to cyber bullying. The article defines cyber bullying as "a constant and hate filled attack on a person using the internet or other means of electronic communication. The different forms include threats, humiliating remarks, and embarrassing photos. The article said cyber bullying has increased 50% from 2000 and 2005. It also says that the form of bullying varies with verbal being the most common. At the time the article was written there was no written law on how schools were required to deal with cyber bullying. However some states such as South Carolina, Oregon, New York, and New Jersey had already started taking action to prevent it. Although most cyber bullying takes place at home it impacts school as well because that is when the students are actually together. Some of the solutions the articles gave included setting up anti bullying groups, having some sort of punishment in place for the people actually doing the bullying, have parents monitor students web activity, and finally having filters on school computers to block sites. 

Assess: Although the article was wrote in 2008 I really liked the way it was formatted into different sections. This made it very easy to follow and read. All of the information is still valid today as well. The Government and states are still trying to figure out the best actions when it comes to dealing with cyber bullying. I'm willing to bet cyber bullying has gone even more up since 2008 now that even more students have phones, tablets, and laptops at their disposal. I agree that every school should have an anti bulling group as they can be very helpful and show students that they are not alone and lots of kids are going through the same thing they are. I like how the author was not afraid to quote other peoples theories too. A lot of times authors think they know everything so they do not need any outside information but this one did not take himself too seriously and used others to his advantage. 

CBS News. (September 16th 2013.) Mother says cyber-bullying drove 12 year old daughter to commit suicide. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTndM0IXMoI  

Summary: Twelve year old student Rebecca Sedwick committed suicide by jumping off of a building. Her mother says it was due to online bullying. Other students called her names and even told Rebecca to kill herself on numerous occasions. The one occasion they even told her to jump off a building. The parents seemed to take all the precautionary measures by monitoring Rebecca's actions. However their was some social media accounts that the parents did not know about where the bullying continued. Rebecca told her friends goodbye on social media as well before she committed suicide. Her friends and family wore bright colors at the funeral to raise awareness.
Assess: There are so many cases like this but for some reason this one stuck out to me. For one the girl was only twelve years old not even a teenager yet she should not have to be dealing with stuff like that. Usually I think of people who have to deal with cyber bullying to be in high school but these just shows it starts even younger. Even though the parents took precautionary measures they were still not able to see everything. This is why communication is just as key and you should talk to your kids or students to see what exactly is going on.  The fact that she said goodbye on social media as well instead of leaving a note shows the era that we live in today and how much it impacts students lives. It is great to see other students and her family wearing bright colors though to raise awareness that cyber bullying is a serious issue.

Reflection:  You hear all the time about cyber bullying but actually researching it made me look at it in a whole new light. There's so many grey areas as discussed in the article about what should be done about cyber bullying but the clip shows that something surely needs to be done. Teachers need to be aware of signs of depression and they to can monitor students web activities. They can also ask other classmates who are the students friends if they have noticed any inappropriate activity. In this web driven world cyber bullying really is just as big of an issue if not more of an issue than regular bullying. There are a lot of positives about technology that can assist schools and teaching that other students are talking about on this blog. Unfortunately cyber bullying is one of the negatives that comes with students being so invested and wrapped up in technology.