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The GagglerVolume VII • Issue VllI • April 2012

Cyber Safety Awareness DayMay 17, 2012Bullying is nothing new, though the venue has evolved from passing notes and gossiping to using technology and social media. Some like to call it “drama” but it is more than that - it is cyberbullying. By definition “cyberbullying” is when a child, preteen or teen is repeatedly tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies, or mobile phones.

Consider this:

• The Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reports that close to half of all children are bullied some time during their school career.

• The National Crime Prevention Center reports that over 40% of all teenagers with Internet access have reported being bullied online, with girls being more likely to be the target than boys.

• Nearly 40% of preteen and teens admit to using social media to victimize and harass their peers.

Cyberbullying is a silent epidemic. Educating students on how to stay cyber safe requires a proactive approach; research shows that children, preteens, and teens are unlikely to tell adults they are being harassed. Gaggle is committed to preventing bullying and protecting students. Over 13 million American kids will be bullied this year, making it the most common form of aggression experienced by young people in the nation. Now is the time to take a stand and support National Cyber Safety Awareness Day on May 17, 2012. Encourage your students, faculty and staff to take Gaggle’s Cyber Safety course, take part in the Great American No Bull Challenge, and learn more about The Bully Project movie.

• Gaggle’s Cyber Safety course is a series of four short videos from NetCetera, which is a part of the federal government’s www.OnGuardOnline.gov project. Students are required to not only view each video, but correctly answer a series of questions to check for understanding. All users receive a certificate of completion once they finished the course. Gaggle’s Cyber Safety course, along with our filters, access management and monitoring, create an online environment where teachers and students can communicate and collaborate safely.

• The Great American No Bull Challenge is the largest youth-led campaign using social media to inspire middle and high school students to combat cyberbullying. For more information, you can visit

www.nobullchallenge.org/campaign-toolkit. • The new documentary film BULLY, directed by Sundance and Emmy-award winning filmmaker

Lee Hirsch, brings human scale to bullying, offering an intimate, unflinching look at how bullying has touched five kids and their families. We encourage you to learn more about The Bully Project at h t t p : / / t h e b u l l y p r o j e c t . c o m .

Gaggle will be supporting Cyber Safety Awareness Day on May 17th and we encourage you to do the same. Share your Cyber Safety Awareness Day stories with Gaggle: email us at articles@gaggle.net.

Gaggle’s Collaboration and Productivity Tools are a 2012 CODiE Award Finalist in the categories of Best Cross-Curricular Solution, Best Education Community Solution and Best Instructional Solution in Other Curriculum Areas. Winners will be announced May 7.

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School Spotlight Clint ISD, El Paso, TX

Clint ISD geographically spans just over 379 square miles with its 13 campuses and serves 10,899 students. The district implemented Gaggle district-wide for the 2011-2012 school year as part of a proactive approach to Cyber Safety. Gaggle provides a Cyber Safety course in the form of a series of four videos from NetCetera—a part of the federal government’s www.OnGuardOnline.gov project. Each campus in the Clint ISD required their students to take the Cyber Safety course before using Gaggle’s email and online web tools.Yvonne Reyes, Instructional Technology Coordinator for Clint ISD, said that she not only liked that the course was short, but that it was easy to keep track of student results, especially completion. “Gaggle has made it so easy to pull reports that provide proof that Clint ISD is offering Cyber Safety training. These reports will make filing for eRate funding much easier next year.”According to Ms. Reyes, Clint ISD believes it is their

responsibility to educate students about the Internet and safety. “Knowledge on identity theft, sending or receiving inappropriate pictures and content from a computer or a cell phone may appear to be common sense, but in reality it isn’t for many students. Providing a Cyber Safety course is just a good refresher and reminder of computer netiquette.” Ms. Reyes went on to say, “In many cases, the students are the ones educating parents about the internet and how to use it, so it makes sense we ensure students know how to be safe while on the internet.”Gaggle would like to recognize Clint ISD for their efforts in promoting bullying prevention in their district with their campaign to “Let’s put a stop to bullying now!” They have a Bullying Prevention Hotline with a direct line to each of their 13 campuses for students to take that first step and report bullying!

The Gaggler Volume VII • Issue VllI • April 2012

Ask Admin…Question: I’ve heard a lot about Gaggle’s Cyber Safety course and would like my students to take it. What’s the best way to make it available to them?

Answer: The Cyber Safety course within Gaggle can be administered two different ways.

1. The course can be set so that the students must work their way through the course before initially accessing their Gaggle accounts. This is great for schools who would like to ensure that their students learn about cyber safety before allowing them to use their accounts.

2. The course can also be set so that it is available to the students via a link within the Applications menu in the left panel. This option is great for schools who would like to allow their teachers to introduce the course to the students during a time that fits best within their curriculum.

Both of these options can be set within the Basic tab of the School Setup page for your school by your school administrator. Anyone with an Enhanced School Teacher access level or above can easily see who has completed the course by checking the Cyber Safety column of the school’s user list, or using the View filter to display only those who have not completed it.

Gaggle keeps comprehensive logs of student activity that can be made available to school administrators if a student situation arises. The logs can track student uploads, login times, and login IPs. In some cases, students may claim their accounts were hijacked by another person or student. The Gaggle engineers can provide the external login IPs to help verify from where the account was accessed. Please contact your Account Representative if you need to access any student logs.

Tech TalkStudent Activity Logs

Need a Gaggle refresher? Register for one of our many free webinars. Visit our Webinars blog at www.gaggle.net/webinar/ or use the Portal Link on the left panel in your account to see all of our upcoming offerings. The webinars run about 45 minutes and are offered at multiple times so you are sure to find one that fits your schedule. If your school gives credit for attending these trainings, please email us after participating, and we can provide documentation for your attendance.

Free Webinars

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Gaggle.Net, Inc.1-800-288-7750P.O. Box 1352, Bloomington, IL 61702Copyright © 2012

Andrea Keith joined the Gaggle team over 5 years ago as an Account Manager/Trainer. At that time she had no idea she would be traveling the country speaking at conferences on the benefits and challenges of implementing technology and social media into the classroom. But as a former educator, Andrea says it is the best of both worlds. “I have a teaching background and even though I’m not in front of students anymore, I use this as my inspiration in working for Gaggle.”

Andrea has worn many hats since starting at Gaggle and today is Director of Client Engagement where her main focus revolves around client implementation. She and her team assist new districts and support them in successfully rolling out Gaggle’s safe online learning environment.

When asked what her favorite Gaggle experience is, Andrea did not hesitate in talking about her training trip to Frankfurt, Germany where she met with many of the Department of Defense School’s. Andrea loves being able to contribute to Gaggle customers in this way and says, “it’s exciting to work for a company that is so focused on making teachers lives easier while engaging kids”.

Andrea is a Fresno State grad and has been married for nearly 23 years to her college sweetheart Jef. Both of their children will be attending Western Illinois University this fall: Jeni as a senior, and Jay as a freshman. They live in Normal, IL and share their soon-to-be-empty nest with their dog Taffy.

The Gaggler Volume VII • Issue VllI • April 2012

A Gaggle Introduction

Conference 2012 Dates Location URLTech & Learning Forum April 27 Boston, MA http://www.techlearning.com/Tech & Learnign Forum May 4 Chicago, IL http://www.techlearning.com/SIIA Ed Tech Industry Summit May 8-10 San Francisco, CA http://www.siia.net/etis/2012/CGCS Annual Chief Informa-tion Officer’s Conference

June 12-15 Minneapolis, MN http://www.cgcs.org

ISTE June 25-27 San Diego, CA http://www.iste.org

All teachers and administrators should be marking their calendars for May 17th, National Cyber Safety Awareness Day! As this important day draws near, get your students involved in projects to promote Cyber Safety and prevent bullying at school. Need some ideas? Have your students create their own Cyber Safety videos to upload and share in GaggleTube. Take this from a classroom project to school wide involvement embedding the videos in a school wide Message Board so students can vote on their favorite. If you are using Gaggle’s Texting, have students’ text in their votes!

Everyone appreciates random acts of kindness so recognize them by creating a School-wide Random Acts of Kindness Blog. Use this blog to spotlight students who put others first and are doing the right thing, both inside and outside of the classroom. Submissions for the blog can even be submitted using a School-wide Homework Drop Box, so spotlights can be anonymous and organized in one place. This activity could be easily adapted to use Social Wall Groups or Message Boards if your school is using one of these applications.

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