Tech Therapy: USC Writing Class Takes on Cyberbullies (post #1)

Professor Mark Marino

In the story below, listen to the podcast as to how University students took an innovative stance against cyberbullying. Specifically, students at the University of Southern California were deeply affected by the case of cyberbullying that led to the suicide of music student, Tyler Clementi at Rutgers University. Students turned to social networking to engage in social activism and to demonstrate the political use of technology.

Through Words & Social Networking USC students are extending a helping hand to the online community in the following ways:

(1). Students created SOS classroom where individuals who were victims of cyberbullying can access online resources (Crowdsourcing and Resource Collection).
(2). Students initiated a letter writing campaign to Facebook that would allow members to technologially flag potential cases of cyberbullying.
(3). Via Facebook, students proposed an efficient and quick way for individiuals to access suicide prevention and counseling materials ---- On any wall post or status message, one would just have to write "@wallwatch" to access materials.

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Article: Episode 78: USC Writing Class Takes on Cyberbullies

In what could be considered a model of using off-the-shelf tech tools for a high-impact class project, a writing class spent the fall semester creating resources to help victimes of online bullies. The Tech Therapy team talks with Mark Marino, an assistant professor of writing at University of Southern California who led the effort, and one of his students about their online campaign.
Download this recording as an MP3 file, or subscribe to Tech Therapy on iTunes.

http://cdn11.castfire.com/audio/25/81/199/473103/techtherapy_2010-12-06-190103-57-0-0-0.64.mp3?cdn_id=15&uuid=8a12186e41afb1556dd1e86b3fe0a010&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fchronicle.com%2Farticle%2Farticle-content%2F125634%2F