Presentation Agenda

• Origin & Current Situation in Taiwan
• Cyberbullying Talent Show
• What is Cyberybullying?
• Characteristics of Cyberbullying
• Cyberbullying Prevention
  
• Research Q & Instrument
  
• Q&A
  

Origin and current situation in Taiwan

• IT integration in K-12 curriculum. Exponential growth of technology has changed social interactions, learning strategies & choice of entertainment for adolescents
  
• Access to the online emerging technologies provides new communication tool for youth, whose use of email, IM, webcams, chat rooms, social networking sites, and text messages is exposing worldwide.
• Although Internet provides opportunities for social support, identity exploration & educational development, it is concurrently a site for abuse & victimization.
  
• The Internet & other forms of communication technology place children & youth at risk of being bullied online.
  
• A recent study by Chou (2009) among junior high school students:
  1. 30 % of the students have been bullied
  2. 40 % of the victims would talk to their classmates or friends
  3. 20 % to brothers and sisters
  4. 15 % to parents
  5. 25 % chose to be silent

Cyberbullying -Talent Show

Texas State Laws

Tex. Educ. Code 25.0341 (2006) defines bullying as "engaging in written or verbal expression or physical conduct that as school district board of trustees or the board's designee determines:

(1)will have the effect of physically harming a student, damaging a student's property, or placing a student in reasonable fear of harm to the student's person or of damage to the student's property; or

(2) is sufficiently sever, persistent, or pervasive enough that the action or threat creates an intimidating, threatening, or abusive educational environment for a student.

What is cyberbullying

• The use of information & communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.
• It includes the use of email, cell phone, text message, and Internet sites to threaten, harass, embarrass or socially exclude
• Further encompasses the use of an electronic medium to sexually harass, including distributing unsolicited text or photos of a sexual nature or requesting sexual acts either online or offline.

Chracteristics of cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is a relatively new research topic, following the rapid increase in use of the internet and mobile devices. Several characteristics distinguish cyberbullying from other forms of bullying, such as:

• Students who are victimized have no place to hide, and can be targeted anytime and anyplace.
• Cyberbullying can involve a very wide audience (e.g., through the circulation of video clips on the internet), although the bully may not be aware of the audience’s reactions.
• Students who cyberbully others are relatively protected by the anonymity of electronic forms of contact, which can safeguard them from punishment or retaliation.
• As with some indirect traditional bullying, students who cyberbully do not usually see the response of the victim, changing the satisfactions or inhibitions normally generated by bullying.

Cyberbullying Prevention

To minimize the likelihood of cyberbullying

What can be done?

School administrators should at a minimum:

• develop rules and policies that prohibit the use of district computers and other cyber technologies to bully or harass others
• establish policies and procedures that limit students' use of school Internet resources for nonacademic purposes
• educate students and staff about cyber bullying and the school's policies and procedures
• provide adequate supervision and monitoring of students (including the use of Internet)
  
• establish effective mechanism for students and staff to report suspected cyber bullying or other misuse of cyber technologies
  
• establish effective procedures to respond to reports

Teachers and parents can follow some piratical guidelines:

• develop close communications with adolescents and encourage them to relate problems such as episodes of digital harassment
• students should be told not to share personal information such as their email password, with anyone except for parents
• students, parents, educators, and law enforcement personnel should know where to go for information about online abuses, such as cyber intimidation, con artists, identify thieves, predators, stalkers, criminal hackers, financial fraud, security, and privacy problems.
  
• For example, WiredSafety, http://wiredsafety.org, is an organization that provides in this area. The US Department of Justice, www.cybercrime.gov, offers guidelines contacts for reporting Internet crimes. Bill Besley, recipient of the Canadian Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Technology, maintains www.cyberbullying.ca, a website for students, parents, and the public that describes the emotional costs of cyberbullying, forms of mistreatment, and prevention strategies.
  
• Adults should ensure that students realize that people may not be who they say they are in a chat room. For example, someone could claim to be a 16-year-old female, but in reality a 40-year-old male predator seeking to take advantage of a vulnerable adolescent.
  
• Teenagers never should agree to meet someone they have chatted with online unless their parents go with them and the meeting is in a public place.
  
• People should avoid sending impulse messages or staying online when angry. Wait until self-control and a sense of calm is restored so that the message us more sensibly written and excludes hostility.
• People typically regret sending a "flame" (angry) message that could motivate someone to become a cyberbully as an act of revenge. Keep in mind that messages in capital letters are interpreted as shouting by some recipients.
  
• When adolescents tell teachers or parents about cyber harassment, the cooperating adults immediately should inform the police and the Internet instane messaging or mobile phone service provider.
• Victims should never respond to cyberbullies, but keep messages as evidence, including the text and source of information detailing the originating address of the email. Whether or not they are read, messages should not be erased. The police, Internet service provider, or the telephone company often can use the narratives for tracking purposes.
• Most cyberbullies who post anonymous messages are not as anonymous as they may think. If a legitimate threat exist, law enforcement officialism can subpoena records all the Web users for a particular website. From there, users can be tracked to their individual computers.
  

Possible Research Questions

• To what extent do Taiwanese adolescents experience cyberbullying?
• What are the characteristics among Taiwanese 7-12 graders?
• What are students' perceptions about school respond system in terms of the prevention of cyberbullying?
• To what extent do students know saftey strategies in cyberspace, and where do they obtain they information from?
• Is there any correlation between cuberbullying indictments and the frequency of using online Internet tools?
• IS there any correlation between cyberbullying and students' academic performance?