Andy Carvin called for an anti-cyberbullying day today, Friday, March 30th and I’m with him. Vicki Davis seconded Andy Carvin’s call and also asked that today be Anti-cyberbullying day and I’m with her. Jen Wagner posted

“Please mark this FRIDAY, March 30th, 2007 — as STOP CYBERBULLYING DAY!”

and I’m with her too!

Wes Fryer’s very informative wiki states

“According to the Pew Research Center, 20 million kids between the ages of 12 and 17 use the Internet, almost 87% of all US teens. Of those, 60% say they have been contacted online by a stranger, and 15% admit to lying about their age to gain access to an adult web site (including one out of five boys surveyed). Almost half (45%) of teens have used the Internet to post or send photos of themselves. In addition, new research shows the Internet is a growing gathering place for “marginalized” teens engaged in self-injury and other harmful practices. In these online communities, such behavior is often normalized.”

BUT it shouldn’t be just a day. It should be stop cyberbullying day EVERYDAY! We’re discussing cyberbullying in class today. We’re discussing cyberbullying in class on Monday, we’ll be discussing cyberbullying on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday too! And we’re going to keep on discussing it because we have zero-tolerance for bullying in the classroom and playground – we should definitely have zero-tolerance in cyberspace.

Here’s some of the sites we’ll be looking at:-
Cyberbullying.org
Stop Bullying Now

Here’s some sites I’ll be sharing with my colleagues:-
Addressing Cyberbullying in Schools
Cyberbullying Ning
Cybervocabulary
Centre for Safe and Responsible Internet Use

We must continually address this issue.