ABSTRACT
“What about that mean stuff kids do with their email?” This became a persistent question in the early years of the 21st century as my colleague and I were training schools and staffs in Seattle Public Schools on bullying prevention and intervention. “Some of that stuff gets pretty nasty,” people would add. It came from school after school and staff after staff. The email focus, per se, is now outdated. Although email is still a part of the electronic lives of students, it has taken on a different role for many. Other types of social networking are now more prominently used for electronic forms of harassment, intimidation, bullying (HIB), and threats. However, even back in “the old days,” we realized that we needed to be able to address a growing concern and to offer educators something which they could use in their bullying prevention and intervention efforts. We also realized that the educators themselves were going to be less aware of and less comfortable responding to cyber situations than they were recognizing and responding to real-world, bricks-and-mortar bullying.
