In mid-September, a young couple in Boyds, MD spent part of a sunny fall afternoon posing for photos. Like dozens of other teens and even some professional photographers, they decide to use the railroad tracks running through town as an attractive backdrop. While 16-year-old Natalie Crim and her twin sister Sarah flipped through the photos…
In August 2010, a woman named Jennifer Woolsey reportedly found a video on the desktop of her family’s shared computer that showed her husband Brian on the receiving end of a sexual act by a young woman. At the time, both she and her husband were teachers at Sunrise Mountain High School in Peoria, Arizona,…
When I researched and wrote Cybertraps for the Young, one thing that surprised me was the ease with which teens could order addictive and dangerous products from Web sites around the world. Any teen with a credit card (or access to one) could buy products intended for adults and have them shipped home or to…
At the end of September, Canadian tech entrepreneurs Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough announced the pending release of “Peeple,” an app designed to enable users to give one- to five-star ratings to the various people in their lives — basically, “Yelp” for humanity. The reaction to the announcement was, to put it mildly, ferociously negative.…
In the fall of 2010, a young man named Tyler Clementi began his freshman year at Rutgers University in New Jersey. A couple of weeks into the school year, Clementi’s roommate set up a webcam to surreptitiously broadcast an intimate encounter between Clementi and another man. Clementi, a gifted musician, learned about what had happened…
2015-09-24 Cybertraps for Educators: The Rising Cost of Digital Misconduct from Frederick Lane A presentation delivered on September 24, 2015 in Cape May, NJ, to school business officials from around the state. If you are interested in discussing a presentation or professional development program for your organization on this topic (with or without cowboy hats…
2015-09-21 Cyberethics for Educators: The Rising Cost of Digital Misconduct from Frederick Lane A webinar presented to members of the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification on September 21, 2015. If you are interested in discussing a presentation for professional development or continuing education for your organization on this topic or…
In August, I wrote about the case of Stephanie McCrea, a drama teacher at Evergreen High School in Vancouver, WA. She used a fake Facebook page to communicate with and set up sexual trysts with a 15-year-old student. Among other things, she used the Facebook page to coach her student on how to answer questions…
A couple of days ago, the Times of London published an op-ed by an anonymous female former teacher entitled “I Had an Affair with My 17-year-old Student.” The article, unfortunately, is behind the paper’s paywall, so it will only be accessible to those readers with a Times subscription or those who are willing to sign…
Later tonight (Wednesday, 23 September 2015), I will be doing an interview on BlogTalkRadio with Cheri Roberts, host of the show “Challenging the Rhetoric.” I will be doing a ten-minute segment with Cheri from approximately 6:40 to 6:50pm Pacific (9:40 to 9:50pm Eastern) to discuss the growing problem of child sexual abuse and the role…
