A video clip about Cyber Bullying created by Marryatville High School students
Discussion:
Bullying can take place online and offline. The focus of this activity is cyberbullying and its effects.
What do you think cyberbullying involves? As a class the students can discuss the following questions: · What is cyberbullying and which technologies can be used to cyberbully? · Is cyberbullying any different to offline bullying? Do you think it is worse or just different? · Do the people involved in cyberbullying have to know each other?
View or read ‘Lauren’s Ordeal’.
Case study: Lauren’s Ordeal—Cyberbullying Transcript ‘Well, I was best friends with this girl called Susan. We had this huge fight and we stopped being friends. When I went to school the next day, I noticed that people were suddenly avoiding me, and even my group of friends wouldn’t talk to me. They just completely ignored me. I started to notice other people in the school pointing at me and whispering things and laughing amongst themselves. I started to get text messages saying all these awful things that weren’t true, and I couldn’t understand why people were doing this to me. I had no idea what the messages meant. When I arrived home I had a stack of new emails, some from people I didn’t even know, saying all these things about my private life they couldn’t possibly know. I went onto Messenger and there was hardly anyone online, which was really unusual. All I could think was that people must be blocking me. I logged on to the school’s public message board and was completely shocked to see that someone had posted all these new topics about me, saying all these terrible things that weren’t true at all. When things got that serious I had to tell my parents. They contacted the school and the message board was shut down until they could fix the problem. The next day someone set up a blog containing my photo and a list of lies and rumours about me, and people started posting comments. This went on for about a week. It was so hard to deal with. I was so stressed. Then I started getting text messages saying things like, ‘I hate you’ or ‘Why don’t you just die?’ That’s when the police got involved. They traced the numbers from the threatening messages and visited the offenders and they eventually discovered that I had supposedly sent all my friends a message telling them all these secrets about my life, which was a complete lie. Susan must have logged on with my username and password. You just can't tell what might happen if your details end up in the wrong hands.’
Student discussion:
· Cyberbullying—is this a problem in our school? · What are the differences between bullying and cyberbullying? · The internet is a public place—what should you keep private online e.g. full name, address, age, mobile number, email address and anything which might locate a student such as school or sporting club? · What are some of the things Lauren could have done to help prevent cyberbullying? · How responsible is Susan for Lauren’s ordeal? · Why do you think other people became involved in cyberbullying Lauren—even though they didn’t know her? · Are people breaking the law when they threaten Lauren?
Individually or with a partner, discuss the questions below.Answer in sentences in your book. Be prepared to talk through your answers with the rest of the class.
1. Lots of people say that the internet has become an invaluable part of their life and they don’t know what they would do without it. How valuable is the internet to you? Could you do without it? Why? Why not? 2. What a lot of people never realise is that the internet is actually just another public place. What does this statement mean? What insight does it give you into how people should behave on the internet or the types of precautions you need to take?
Further questions 3. List some of the actions of cyberbullying that hurt Lauren. 4. What did Lauren do to combat the cyberbullying? 5. What lesson did Lauren learn from her cyberbullying experience? 6. People who didn’t know Lauren became involved in bullying her. Why do you think that happened?
Cyber Bullying
A video clip about Cyber Bullying created by Marryatville High School students
Discussion:
Bullying can take place online and offline. The focus of this activity is cyberbullying and its effects.
What do you think cyberbullying involves?
As a class the students can discuss the following questions:
· What is cyberbullying and which technologies can be used to cyberbully?
· Is cyberbullying any different to offline bullying? Do you think it is worse or just different?
· Do the people involved in cyberbullying have to know each other?
View or read ‘Lauren’s Ordeal’.
Transcript
‘Well, I was best friends with this girl called Susan. We had this huge fight and we stopped being friends. When I went to school the next day, I noticed that people were suddenly avoiding me, and even my group of friends wouldn’t talk to me. They just completely ignored me.
I started to notice other people in the school pointing at me and whispering things and laughing amongst themselves. I started to get text messages saying all these awful things that weren’t true, and I couldn’t understand why people were doing this to me. I had no idea what the messages meant. When I arrived home I had a stack of new emails, some from people I didn’t even know, saying all these things about my private life they couldn’t possibly know.
I went onto Messenger and there was hardly anyone online, which was really unusual. All I could think was that people must be blocking me. I logged on to the school’s public message board and was completely shocked to see that someone had posted all these new topics about me, saying all these terrible things that weren’t true at all. When things got that serious I had to tell my parents. They contacted the school and the message board was shut down until they could fix the problem.
The next day someone set up a blog containing my photo and a list of lies and rumours about me, and people started posting comments. This went on for about a week. It was so hard to deal with. I was so stressed.
Then I started getting text messages saying things like, ‘I hate you’ or ‘Why don’t you just die?’ That’s when the police got involved. They traced the numbers from the threatening messages and visited the offenders and they eventually discovered that I had supposedly sent all my friends a message telling them all these secrets about my life, which was a complete lie.
Susan must have logged on with my username and password. You just can't tell what might happen if your details end up in the wrong hands.’
Student discussion:
· Cyberbullying—is this a problem in our school?
· What are the differences between bullying and cyberbullying?
· The internet is a public place—what should you keep private online
e.g. full name, address, age, mobile number, email address and anything which might locate a student such as school or sporting club?
· What are some of the things Lauren could have done to help prevent cyberbullying?
· How responsible is Susan for Lauren’s ordeal?
· Why do you think other people became involved in cyberbullying Lauren—even though they didn’t know her?
· Are people breaking the law when they threaten Lauren?
Individually or with a partner, discuss the questions below. Answer in sentences in your book. Be prepared to talk through your answers with the rest of the class.
1. Lots of people say that the internet has become an invaluable part of their life and they don’t know what they would do without it.
How valuable is the internet to you? Could you do without it? Why? Why not?
2. What a lot of people never realise is that the internet is actually just another public place.
What does this statement mean? What insight does it give you into how people should behave on the internet or the types of precautions you need to take?
Further questions
3. List some of the actions of cyberbullying that hurt Lauren.
4. What did Lauren do to combat the cyberbullying?
5. What lesson did Lauren learn from her cyberbullying experience?
6. People who didn’t know Lauren became involved in bullying her. Why do you think that happened?
Cyberbullying - Let's Fight it Together