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Sunday, November 21, 2010

Internet Research for TechQuest Project

Background

The need for internet safety is a major concern for communities, schools, and parents. With so many young children having access to the internet, there are a myriad of ways in which they may be exposed to harm. Upon discussing with my fellow peers and the students that I have in my 8th grade classes, I have decided that a TechQuest focusing on cyberbullying would best benefit my building. This decision was helped by the concerns of several students in regards to bullies who take the torment beyond the offline world and into cyberspace.

Searching

Google played an important part in my search regiment. In the searching, I discovered that cyberbullying has many different spellings (cyberbullying, cyber-bullying, cyber bullying). After some quick research, it seems that cyberbullying is the correct spelling of the word. This conflict, in spelling, caused many irritating moments. There seems to be no set spelling for the word, possibly because it is relatively new. Many journal articles spell the idea as "cyberbullying," while just as many separate the words into, "cyber bullying." The following search terms were used while in Google:

  • cyberbullying
  • internet safety, cyberbullying
  • cyberbullying WebQuests
  • cyberbullying prevention
One site that kept popping up was the Cyberbullying Research Center. This site is probably one of the most helpful sites I've found. It provides a wealth of information. One interesting piece is an analysis of which States have cyberbullying laws.

After reading Joyce Kasman Valenza's article, Web 2.0 Meets Information Literacy: Make new friends and keep the old, I decided to try some of the search engines that she mentioned. Rollyo.com is a very user-friendly site that offered up some nice results. While in this site, I searched under the term, "cyberbully," and was rewarded with many of the same results that I found on Google. However, you can use a pull down menu to filter the results to legal documents. This was a very helpful feature. By using this feature, I found many blog posts, discussions from college law departments, and various articles discussing the legal ramifications of cyberbullying. I found this tool to be very useful, and have added it to my bookmarks.

Finally, I delved into the world of scholarly search engines. I took to ERIC. Again I used the terms "cyberbullying" and "cyber AND bullying" for my search parameters. Both parameters displayed the same amount, yet different results. By using the Boolean operator "AND," I was able to view articles that included the phrase "online bullying." This was not present while using the "cyberbullying" descriptor.

I was able to find many different articles coming from journals that would benefit my research. I saved a few of the PDFs, but I don't know how I am going to use them in my project. I have decided that many of these PDFs will serve well for educating other teachers, or to act as resources for parents/students who would like to go further into this project.

  • http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ858926.pdf - A study examining psychological needs as an indicator of cyberbullying. It offers a great comparison of bullying versus cyberbullying.
  • http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED490641.pdf - Examines cyberbullying in schools. While it focuses on Canadian schools, the information is still relevant to U.S. schools.
  • http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ724869.pdf - This article would better serve school personal rather than students. It focuses on providing educators with "guidance" on how to handle harassment in school. The focus is on keeping schools out of the courts. A good piece for administration to read.
While the parameters I used provided a plethora of results, in the future I may include terms such as "online bullying," and "online harassment." While these may not provide information that is exactly what I am looking for, they do fall into the realm of what I am studying.

Others Who Have Tried

While researching this topic, I also wanted to see was what have others created in this area of internet safety. I was surprised to find that there are many different activities associated with cyberbullying. These activities range from worksheets, to video, to WebQuests. To begin, I focused on WebQuests. I figured these would provide links to sites that would be beneficial to my project.

    • This site is a great site for links on the topic. While most of the links tend to focus on internet safety (the broad umbrella that encompasses cyberbullying) there are a few sites that are specific to cyberbullying. One link, in particular, that I really liked for my project, is Cyberbullying Digizens "Let's Fight It Together".
      • This link takes students to a very powerful video that is hosted by the digizen.org site. Digizen.org is a site promoting internet safety, and is a valuable site for helping those who have experienced cyberbullying. The video presented here, also found by one of my SIG partners on YouTube, presents the viewer with a moving account of cyberbullying that occurs in a student's life. Once the video is finished, there are "interviews" with the characters of the video. This really helps to provide some insight into the story. There are many parts that adults and students can connect to within this video, making it quite powerful. This is a video that my class will watch as an introduction to this project as it has the capacity to invoke a strong response from the kids.
    • While visiting this site, I took advantage of some of the resources that were used. I also liked the idea for the WebQuest's final project. The students were to put together a video describing a case of bullying. Having the students take on different roles is a good idea, as it makes the topic more personal. While this idea is very nice, my class has limited access to video equipment. However, digital cameras are plenty, and a storyboard of digital pictures may be more appropriate for my students.
      • The resources at this site turned up a valuable site. The National Crime Prevention Council provides a site strictly for the purpose of educating the public about cyberbullying. Links for help, prevention, and identification are found on this page. Also, there is a link where students can take a self-diagnostic quiz to rate their online behaviors. I think this would be a great warm-up activity for students. However, I would prefer to give this to them without them being able to see how the scores are related to the quiz's outcome.

Resources to Be Implemented

Like many research projects, there were more results than could ever be implemented in a class project. However, I was able to find several sources that will work well with what I have planned. I was looking for sources that will engage the student, draw an emotional response, and keep their attention. I am planning on using the following sites for assessment, research, and informational purposes.

Web 2.0

A main component of this project is that the students must work together in order to create the project. Depending on class size, the students will work in groups of two or three. While they will be creating a brochure, I also want them to create some type of public service announcement. Video cameras are in short supply around my building, so I have looked at a few sites that may allow them to do this with photographs. The following sites are in contention for being allowed to use for the class.

  • Google Docs - Will be used for the group to create a list of facts pertaining to cyberbullying. This works well with the class, as the students have a school-based Google account.
    • This may also be used to collaboratively create a slideshow for a final project.
  • Shwup - An online photo/video collaboration tool. The thought is that students can take digital pictures of cyberbullying (staged), and put them together to produce a powerful collage. The site has some moving music that can accompany the transition between pictures.
  • MeMoov - A site for digital story telling. The fact that they can use their voice could make this a popular choice.
  • Zooburst - A great site for creating a "pop-up" book. This site is very engaging and I can see students enjoying creating a book that promotes awareness about the topic. However, I haven't been able to find a way to have students work on the same book from different computers. This might be one for a pair of student to work on after they have sketched out a story offline.  
  • Prezi.com - An interactive slideshow program that students can now work on collaboratively.
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