Cyberbaiting-- The world is changing

Transparency is one of the great advantages of modern ICT-- we can see what our political leaders are doing, we can get access to information immediately, we can access far more information via computers and networks that we could previously.

For educators, this transparency is seen in students' and parents' access to homework assignments, class materials, and even gradebooks via their computers and networks. In general, I believe this transparency is a good thing. A new report, however, is showing an alarming trend...

Apparently, cyberbaiting is gaining popularity... basically, students are taunting teachers to the point that the teachers have an emotional outburst, and that outburst is recorded on a cell phone and posted online. When I was a student I can remember such outbursts, and I have seen them in colleagues (directed towards students and towards colleagues)... these are nothing new and they are the result of people interacting with each other.

it sure seems to me that one way teachers can minimize the potential of being the target of such a situation (there is no way to avoid it altogether) is to create a classroom in which the students are engaged with learning they find meaningful... hey that's what middle school practitioners have been all about for decades!