Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane is trying to educate teens, parents and schools on cyber bullying.

To help understand what cyber bullying is and how to stop it from happening, she has released the following tips on ways to protect yourself and others around you.High School studentsBullying begins to peak during the high school years. Kids begin to find their niche and become involved in sports, music and other extra curricular activities. However, there still can be some cyber bullies who contact victims through personal blogs, instant messaging and even cell phone text messaging.High school students can protect themselves from cyber bullying by:• Being careful about to whom they give their email address and phone numbers.• Never give their email passwords to anyone, not even a close friend.• Walk away from the computer if harassment starts, don't begin a war of words over the computer.• Keep in mind that online conversations can be reproduced and spread very easily. Virtually nothing online is private.Remember, high school students often feel invincible, untouchable, but that sadly isn't the case. Engaging in malice toward others over the Internet can become serious enough to have the police involved. Once students have a criminal record, it will follow them for the rest of their lives on college applications and on job applications. Encourage students to think twice before setting up a website that pokes fun at someone or before they send that hateful text message to the kid in homeroom who "everyone" teases.ParentsParents can be one of the keys in preventing cyber bullying. Much of the bullying that occurs happens on the family computer. Children and teens often are unsupervised on the home computer. They know more about technology than their parents and don't follow proper online etiquette.Parents can help prevent cyber bullying by:• Supervising the use of the computer;• Get the computers out of the bedrooms and into a family room or common living area.• Learn about and monitor the websites that your child visits while on the computer,• Talk to your children about cyber bullying and encourage them to talk to you if they feel threatened while on the Internet.• Be concerned if your child spends an excessive amount of time online and, if necessary, limit his/her time spent on the computer.• Have your child fill out and sign an agreement or pledge, such as the ones on this website, about safety online.As a parent it is important that your children are able to trust you and feel comfortable enough to talk to you about bullying and the Internet.SchoolsEven though a lot of cyber bullying and computer use occurs at home, it is important for school districts and schools to have clear policies for dealing with cyber bullying. Cyber bullying isn't just limited to computer use it also can be done through cellphones. As social networking sites and cell phone use continues to grow in popularity among students, so, too, does cyber bullying.Schools can do a number of things to control cyber bullying:• Integrating curriculum-based anti-bullying programs into classrooms.• Educating teachers on dangers of cyber bullying.• Changing or creating new school board policy to include harassment associated with technology.• Establish serious consequences for students who don't abide by rules.• Block district-wide access to Yahoo Mail, MSN Hotmail, AOL Instant Messenger and any other personal email accounts or personal blog sites such as MySpace, which cannot be monitored.• If your school has a wireless network, restrict cell phone and PDA usage during class time.• Include a section on cyber bullying in the student handbook and make sure that all students read and sign the book acknowledging the policy.School districts should consider establishing new guidelines to deal with new forms of harassment, such as cyber bullying. Districts should clearly outline what disciplinary action will be taken when cyber bullying or other forms of victimization disrupt the learning environment. School districts also can help control the problem by sending letters home, posting safety tips on district websites and taking time to discuss the dangers associated with cyber bullying with students.