May 2005 — SafetyNet
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Designing, Developing and Delivering a Technology-Based Bullying Prevention Lesson for Parents and Communities
March 2005 was the deadliest month for U.S. school shootings since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. This time, the tragedy struck at a Minnesota high school when a teenager shot and killed nine people, including a security guard, a teacher and five students, before taking his own life — once again escalating American concerns for school safety issues and bullying prevention policies (Reuters 2005). Although school districts endeavor to integrate antiviolence programs within their schools, the problem d'esn’t stop there; it involves the entire community.
In 2003, one suburban Pittsburgh community expanded its bullying prevention efforts by implementing a program for elementary schools that had a separate component for children and their parents. The parental component of this program was met through a technology-based lesson developed by Debbie Piecka (one of the article’s authors), a graduate student in Duquesne University’s instructional technology program.
The parental program culminated Piecka’s semester-long instructional technology practicum at Duquesne. Before completing the program and receiving their Pennsylvania certifications in instructional technology, the graduate students were expected to show the pragmatic results of their classroom preparation, mastery of technology based instructional applications, and theoretical comprehension of technology for teaching and learning.
The design of the technology-based component for parents to use at home or in seminars is a CD-ROM with three components: an integrated Web page, a PowerPoint presentation and a text-based workbook. The CD-ROM also provides a startup menu to help guide parents through the bullying content and contains links to the lesson’s three components.
Web page. The “Strategies to Change Bullying Behavior in Schools” Web page launches the lesson and provides navigational instructions about objectives, assessment and exploratory Web sites. It links directly to learning objectives that take parents through a video which depicts bullying behavior in school-age children. The Web page also has links to bullying-related sites that are prepared by educational organizations.
Piecka infused the site’s home page with the essential components required for instruction as defined by Tomei (2001). These elements include an introduction, instructions, lesson objectives, Web sites for learner exploration, assessment information, and an author’s address block. In addition, Piecka developed a virtual tour which offers a more sophisticated, student-focused Web page that presents “multi-sensory, multimedia instruction appropriate for individual [learner] exploration and group learning experiences” (Tomei 2001). Thus, the learner is provided with a “front door” that accommodates multiple learning styles matched to the content offered.
Slide show presentation. The PowerPoint presentation, titled “Parental Role in Bullying Prevention,” focuses on reducing the number of bullying incidents in schools by introducing parents to the following content: bullying definitions, information about national statistics, common bullying behaviors, parental responsibilities, as well as unchecked bullying effects and their impact. The presentation also offers parents visually rich slides depicting actual bullying locations in their own schools — a powerful graphic for stirring parents of both bullies and their targets into action.
