Bullying

For people onlist who saw the Heroes in the Hallway video on youtube and wanted to use it in their classrooms, but couldn't because youtube is blocked... the original source is a company called spiritdesk and they have a link to their video on their site.. so you can use it in the classroom easily.

http://www.thespiritdesk.com/Default.aspx

I'd also like to know about other information or tools on this topic. We've been experiencing a lot of bullying in our middle school lately... some of which has been fairly serious for our whole community. Materials to use in my classroom and perhaps to help improve awareness among our students of the impact of bullying, perhaps empower them to stand up to bullies... rethink their own behavior would be appreciated.

I'm wondering... if the best way to get something going is to have the students make their own video. I bet what really energized the schools involved in the bullying video above is being involved in it... Doing something creative, while having fun and getting lots of kids involved.. the message is sent while the kids are sending the message. I wonder if it would be okay for different schools to use the "template" of this video (which is simple to create) as a sort of viral video project... school after school creating their own version?
Audrey

Tags: bullying, cyberbullying, resources, video

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Permalink Reply by William Bishop on May 8, 2007 at 9:00pm

Great information. Thanks for sharing. We don't block YouTube, but our students aren't allowed to visit the site. If they are caught visiting YouTube, they get into disciplinary trouble. I'm sure we miss some, but most of the students do not visit the site as a result of the rule. School leaders need to take a more active role in teaching students where they can and can't go via AUPs and rules, rather than just blocking sites out of fear.

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Permalink Reply by Susan Brooks-Young on May 8, 2007 at 10:19pm

Another work around YouTube being blocked is to download the video as a flv file (Firefox has plug-ins you can download to do this) and then play the clip offline.

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Permalink Reply by Audrey Hill on May 8, 2007 at 10:31pm

That's true too. I did that, but I wasn't sure whether my flv would open up on our school computers without a program to run it... My inelegant solution was to imbed it in a swf because I happen to have flash at home and then load the swf online to my own website. That was when I thought... "you know... let me check the website listed on the video." And poof... there it was. Problem solved.

But, there will be other videos I'd like to show.. so I have to check whether I could load a video onto my iPod and open it in Windows or Real Player to play on the smartboard. I'm sure most people know the answer to this already... :)

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Permalink Reply by SusanTsairi on May 9, 2007 at 11:29am

Hi Audrey, you might find some information on the topic on foundation for a better life web site. Here is a link to some of their videos. http://www.forbetterlife.org/be_inspired/tv_radio.asp?id=1092

I tried something similar to your suggestion ie doing something creative. Our subject was internet safety, Microsoft Israel put up a presentation on the subject - it was a cute cartoon type story/game about turtles who give out personal info and very soon find themselves in danger, I would say it suited 3rd or 4th grades. I asked my 6th grades to create a presentation based on the same idea but more suitable for kids their age. It was a success, they loved doing it, and I got to see how talented and creative they are.