cyberbullying and the role of the teacher

If the problem of cyberbullying is concerned the role of the teacher should no be ignored. It is common knowledge that most of internet violence victims are still in school. It means that it is very important that schools should ensure the safety of their students.

Providing knowledge in secure usage of new technologies should be treated as a priority in schools, mainly because students are not aware of threats involved in internet usage, such as cyberviolence. First of all teachers along with students should discuss types of cyberviolence and present them with both perspectives : victim, and offender.

Significant fact concerning this case is how the educational system reacts in case of revealed cases of cyberviolence in school. Information of such cases can originate from various sources. Person which will report about such incident can be the victim, victim's parents, other students witnesses or teachers.

Young people often have false impression of anonymity when case of new technologies are concerned. Specialists are convincing that there are various ways of identifying source of cyberbullying. Peoples which are hired to find source of particular data sent via the internet must be aware of the fact that even with the identified source it is still needed to identify person responsible of the occurrence.

Regardless of who reported the event, intervention procedure should consist of:
• psychological assistance towards victim
• collecting evidence and determining circumstances of the event
• drawing the consequences to the offender
• attempt to alter the behavioral patterns of offender

All cases concerning violence, so cases involving usage of electronic medias should be properly studies and documented, because the will serve as baseline for further studies on phenomena of cyberbullying as well as in plans which will be aimed to decrease this trend.

Many perpetrators use “stolen identity” technique by using cellphones of other students, internet portal profiles, mail accounts etc. to send informations, messages, with harmful content. Difficulties with identifying “cyberbully” can be encounter in situation when content is sent via cellphones, wi-fi connections or other secured forms of connection.

Problem of cyberbullying is really significant and will spread even more around the globe because of constant increase in usage of new digital medias. Further studies aimed at finding sources and ways of diminishing this trend are needed.