October: National Bullying Prevention Month

October is National Bullying Prevention Month.  Because our students are connected globally through technology, almost half of them have experienced some sort of cyberbullying. To find more info or stats on CyberBullying/ Bullying check out Cyberbullying Research Center, Stop CyberBullying and Pacer National Bullying Prevention Center.  

As we all embrace engaged learning using technology, my Finance Academy students applied what they learned in Microsoft Word: Creating Documents with Pictures and Formatting a Research Paper, to create flyers that promote bullying prevention and awareness.  They used information from the websites I mentioned above as they create their own flyers.  They then converted the flyer into JPEG format, using Window's Snipping Tool. 

Then, we had fun accessing their existing social media account (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Blogger) and posting a picture of their flyer. The goal is for teens to use their social media account to make their peers aware that bullying and cyberbullying is an issue and that doing nothing is not an option.  They had a choice to use their smart phones, iPad or desktop computers. 

I asked them to encourage their friends to share, "like" and comment on their post.  Next meeting, I will have them update our class on the status of their posts or tweets (or  is it twits?) and share some interesting comments.  Students also committed to wearing orange on Wednesday, October 10, in participation with Pacer National Bullying Prevention Center's, Unite Againts Bullying Campaign. 

In addition, I also reinforced a previous lesson on Cyber Safety and showed them how easy it is for cyber predetors to track twitting activities in a specific location through Bing Maps.  On the other hand, because they/we are online all the time, we are an easy target for bullies as well.  I even made a joke about making sure their flyer is error free or someone may make fun of it online!  I gave them these steps (from Judy Kehr) to follow. They were so amazed at how easy it is to track down an individual's location through their tweets.  The picture above is of my students looking at a map of Hoover High School and the number of students currently tweeting at that time and what they are twiting about.  Of course, their current tweet on Bullying (and Cyberbullying) Awareness was there to see as well.  :)

1. Go to www.bing.com/maps
2. Click on Explore Map Apps.
3. Scroll down the list of apps until you see Twitter Maps (apps are listed in alpha order).
4. Wait several seconds for the page to load. Click + button to zoom in on Hoover or whatever city in which you are interested in locating recent tweets.  The more you zoom in on a location, the more you see tweets from that location.
5. Click on Search tab and enter “alone” or “at work” or “at school” and click Search button.

With did simple and easy to plan activity, I  was able to check my student's knowledge of Microsoft Word, make them an active participant in promoting awareness of a real social issue and observe first hand their enthusiam for social networking as I listen to their comments on safety issues online and how other teens needs to change what they say online!  Have I told you lately, that I really love what I do!? :)