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 Mike Donlin runs the 46,000-student Seattle school district’s anti-cyberbullying program, doing training, and managing grants and projects. He divides his time between the teaching and learning side of cyberbullying prevention and intervention, and the operations side in tech services.
Name: Mike Donlin Title: Senior Program Consultant, Seattle Public Schools Education: M.A., Linguistics, University of Colorado at Boulder
B.A., Secondary Education, The University of Scranton, Pennsylvania Q: What are the cyberspace issues for kids?
A: We hear about all the predatory behavior and the Megan Meier story. These things make the news. But, the way kids themselves are using the technology to abuse each other is really very scary. We’re talking Internet safety and cyberbullying, but not just computers, per se. It’s all the creative ways kids are using Web 2.0 technology to hurt each other. Q: What are typical examples?A: One is kids using their cell phones to take pictures. They might take pictures in the locker room and then send those around or post them on a Web site or a blog. Another is setting up a blog for the express purpose of humiliating another person, and the other person doesn’t know about until the blog has had a lot of input. When the target finds out about it, there’s no way to know who did all the postings. The target has no idea who he or she can trust anymore. We don’t use the word ‘victim’ because a target doesn’t have to necessarily be a victim. Q: How is Seattle addressing cyberbullying?A: We’re developing curriculum that will start in middle school to give students the tools that will make them safe. Currently there are a lot of materials and resources online for people to use to help kids be safe. A lot of it is really good. The challenge is that average teachers aren’t going to know where to look and how to implement it consistently. We’re developing real scope-and-sequence curriculum. In one of the earlier units, one of things students will do is write their own sets of safety rules. The homework is to go home and talk about these rules with parents and guardians. The goal is to get kids, parents, and teachers all on the same page. We’re connecting everything to our Washington state curriculum. We’re also pointing teachers to online resources that can supplement the curriculum. Q: How will the district fund this? A: Qwest has given us a nice chunk of money--$20,000--to get all this curriculum up and running. Seattle schools are contributing an additional $10,000. This is a really good start. It will be enough to get a middle school curriculum and put it online. Q: What’s the next step?A: Ideally, when we secure enough funding, we would expand to the full K-12, and also develop a complete Internet safety focus. You can’t really separate it all out, but that would include identity theft, gaming, addictive behaviors, predators, intellectual property, cyberethics—all those different things that come into play with Web 2.0 tools. Q: How would you describe the big picture of cyberbullying prevention?A: Education, industry, law enforcement, and parents all have to work together to create a united front with a common vocabulary. Kids are always going to be a step ahead. Ideally, there would be enough awareness raised that adults could begin to catch up.  Sheila Riley is a San Francisco-based freelance journalist. She is also an experienced online editor and ESL curriculum developer, and teaches ESL at City College of San Francisco.
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