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Elba students provided with information on cyberbullying

By Howard B. Owens

Deputy Tim Wescott and Youth Officer John Dehm were at Elba School this morning to talk with students about cyberbulling and Facebook and mobile phone safety. They explained how to avoid cyberbullying and the legal implications.

Photo and information submitted by Jason Smith.

Bea McManis

Hard to imagine tax payers money being used to address the issue of cyberbullying.
There are people who really enjoy this activity and they are using OUR tax money to teach the kids how to cope with them.
The last thing people, who engages in cyberbullying, need is having OUR tax money used to inform people that there are legal avenues that can be persued to stop them.
(Your sarcasm detector should be spinning out of control)

Nov 23, 2010, 9:26am Permalink
C. M. Barons

If students are all knee-deep, taking sides in the latest cyber-drama, little of their attention will be devoted to anything else, anyway.

The social networking technology designed to revolutionize how we interact, is no more revolutionary than party-line eavesdropping of the mid-20th Century. For those unfamiliar with that era's gossip buffet- telephone subscribers could choose between private and party lines. Party lines were cheaper and more common, allowed three or more subscribers to share the same trunk line. While a party line subscriber was engaged in a call, anyone else on the same trunk could sneak a listen.

As long as there are great ideas, wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony will reduce them to the lowest common denominator. Part of the problem- of course, expectations for vast friend-lists; the poor slob with scant friends is left to find more creative applications for his/her marvelous toy.

Nov 23, 2010, 1:55pm Permalink
C. M. Barons

...The other problem (of course) is that portable technology allows children to act without supervision. In the former telephone era (1880 - 1970), the telephone was fixed in the most accessible place in the house. ...Come to think of it- both parents (> 87% of families were two-parent back then) were not required to work (one income was sufficient back then) so children and their activities could actually be monitored. Hmm. Parents responsible for the behavior of their children.

Nov 23, 2010, 2:40pm Permalink
Doug Yeomans

Great points, C.M.. Cyber bullying is only possible if the person being bullied is a willing participant. Children just do not need cell phones on them 24-7. they also do not need a computer in their room.

I work on computers as a hobby and build them for myself and for anyone else who needs one..friends and family being my largest group of "customers." I also have had requests to unlock accounts on little Johnny's or Jane's computer because they have locked their parents out and refuse to divulge the password. I use an administrative boot disk to wipe the password from any user account in the Windows SAM database in order to access those accounts. (Yes kids, it's easy to do and mommy and daddy, if there's a daddy around, will be able to see all your stuff) I can honestly say that the girls are the worst for what I have uncovered on those computers.

My advice - Don't allow your children to have administrator privileges. The administrator account and the parent(s) should be the only administrators. The children should have user accounts only. Don't allow them unfettered broadband access from a computer in their room. Children who are allowed to remain in their room with a computer become isolated and are often up to things you don't (or do) want to know about, depending on how you look at it.

Monitor what your kids are doing online. If they have a cell phone, get online and check their texting logs on a regular basis. See if they were texting during school hours..etc. I guess you actually need to nosy to be a responsible parent. It's your responsibility, right?

Nov 24, 2010, 12:30pm Permalink

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