Digital Literacy Blog5:Possible Solutions for students’ Cyber bullying

Cyber bullying is a huge topic; there are a lot of researches discussing it. This blog will try to provide some ways to mitigate and avoid students’ cyberbullying.

The First step:

The first thing should happen is seeking help. Students have to ask an adult for help which very few students do so (Hoff and Mitchell, 2009). To make matter worse, according to a study done on a school, students are less likely to report any issues with school due two reasons (Hoff and Mitchell, 2009):

1-some of the victims claim that the school’s officials don’t take it serious enough for them which made them even weaker.

2-some other students say they will pass us to our parents or counsellors, there is no point to tell the school.

There are some students that don’t report cyberbullying to their parents because they are afraid of three things (Hoff and Mitchell, 2009):

1- They don’t want their parents to be angry at them or worried about them.

2-They don’t want their devices taken away from them.

3-They are too shy to show their sexual relationships to their parents(if the bullying was about that)

So the first part of the solution is to seek for help.

The second step:

Bhat (2008) says one of the possible solutions for cyberbullying is have some professional organisations to help educators and students.

These are some good examples of organisations:

• My Space has created a guide to understand how social networking sites work and it has information about cyber bullying (MySpace.com, 2006).
• I-SAFE is an organisation for students about the Internet safety and cyber bullying (I-SAVE.org, n.d.).
• Sustenance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administrations origination provide educating and developing students social skills (Bhat, 2008).
• there is an Australian program called the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, which works to reduce bullying and provide training for the student to develop social skills (Hemphill and smith, 2010)

References:

Bhat, C. S. (2008). Cyber Bullying: Overview and Strategies for School Counsellors, Guidance Officers, and All School Personnel. Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 18(01), 53-66.‏

Hoff, D. L., & Mitchell, S. N. (2009). Cyberbullying: Causes, effects, and remedies. Journal of Educational Administration, 47(5), 652-665.‏

i-Safe.org. (n.d.). Cyber bullying: Statistics and tips. Retrieved May 3, 2007, from http://www.isafe.org/channels/sub.php?ch=op&sub_id=media_cyber_bullying

MySpace.com. (2006). The official school administrator’s guide to understanding MySpace and resolving social networking issues. Retrieved July 5, 2007, from http://www.nsba. org/site/docs/39400/39399.pdf