Went to Yahoo today for a summit on "Cyber Citizenship." It was organized by my good friends at CTAP Region 5, and it featured speakers and panelists discussing a wide-range of issues related to child safety on the Internet.

While I think this is an important issue, it should come as no surprise that I think most of it comes down to common sense: know what your kids are doing on the Net, teach them to be respectful to others, and teach them how to deal with inappropriate content. Duh.

One area that is fairly new to me though is "Cyber Bullying". When I was teaching I had to deal with kids using the Internet to tease others, but text messaging, IM, and MySpace allow kids to take this to a whole new level. That's why I was excited to meet Debbie and Jason who created a DVD called Adina's Deck to help kids better understand these issues. Debbie is a fellow alum of the Learning, Design, and Technology program at Stanford, and this was her master's project. Here's a sample from the DVD:



I still need to evaluate the DVD myself, but it sounds promising. If you like what they say in the interview, consider buying the DVD from their website. Just mention me or School 180 to get a special discount. ; )

Kudos to Debbie and Jason for producing high-quality, engaging video content to help educate tweens and teens on this topic! I know I'll be showing it to my kids once they graduate from Club Penguin.