Friday, March 30, 2007

March 30: Stop Cyberbullying Day

Important Announcement!
Today, March 30, has been declared '
Stop Cyberbullying Day'. I believe the initiative has come from Andy Carvin in conjunction with a number of concerned cybercitizens and was in response to the disgraceful treatment prominent blogger, Kathy Sierra, has had to put up with recently.

This is a great initiative and I invite you to support it by spreading the word and sharing your resources with the rest of us. Andy has started Stop Cyberbullying: "A social network to discuss cyberbullying, identifying resources and solutions to address this epidemic of online cruelty." It is a great place to interact with other concerned online dwellers and to participate in discussions and share resources to do with cyberbullying.

Vicki Davis has a creative post today called B:-( Stop Cyberbullying bit by bit where she lists a number of action points that we could all consider doing.

I would like to share my own online resources for cyberbullying as I have recently put these together and mentioned them in another blog post. However, being Stop Cyberbullying Day, I have revisited these.

First of all I have a Cyberbullying Presentation all set to go if you need something to show students or teachers or parents.
I also have a collection of information and resources that I have roughly divided into suitable for parents, students and teachers.

I would also like to highlight the work of Parry Aftab of wiredsaftey.org (who kindly responded to my earlier blog post). I have used Parry's videos in the presentation, but since creating it she has been able to upload even more and they are all available on YouTube.

Parry's profile information on her YouTube account details the work she is doing, the dedication with which she approaches this. The wiredsafety group invite people to volunteer and be part of the team who make a difference. This includes teenagers, who have formed a group called 'teenangels' who receive special training to help fight cyberbullying.

"Parry is one of the leading experts in cyberlaw and Internet safety and security in the world. Her Internet safety charity, WiredSafety.org, is comprised of thousands of unpaid volunteers, including Parry herself. They help Internet users with anything that goes wrong online and help teach safe, private and responsible interactive technology work. They deal with predators, cyberbullying, harassment and stalking, hate, piracy, privacy and misinformation and hype. Her educational videos and animations are available to share and use."

Parry Aftab's Cyberbullying: the video Part 1
This video was uploaded on March 22 to YouTube and runs for 4 min 28 sec
It is a 'must watch' video as it details what cyberbullying is, the different types of cyberbullies found and gives details of the network Parry has set up to help victims.




Scott McLeod has provided some
cyberbullying badges that you may use, such as this one.


So, spread the word, pull together your resources and open up discussions in your school and working environment. Join forces to stamp out bullying and the new digital form of bullying 'cyberbullying'.


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1 comment:

Gav said...

Hi Julie,

This article from the Sunday Times (UK) maybe of interest to you: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article1596698.ece

It has raised a few questions in our part of the world.