Andrea Weckerle, featured speaker at the MCPS cybercivility forum, urged students to be conscious of the widespread effects of their online activity. Superintendent Joshua Starr also spoke at the forum, which aimed to inform the community about how to use the Internet safely and respectfully.

The forum, held in the Richard Montgomery auditorium April 24, attracted a crowd of about 100 people. The audience was mostly parents, but some students were also watching.

The forum emphasized the dangers and potential consequences of using the Internet disrespectfully.

“Online, lot of people aren’t looking behind the scenes,” Weckerle said. “They just see good, bad, neutral and they move on.”

Weckerle is the author of the nonfiction book Civility in the Digital Age and founder of the nonprofit organization CiviliNation. CiviliNation’s goal is to protect open and respectful dialogue on the internet.

Weckerle urged students to think carefully about how to respond to offensive online comments. Though they can’t change other people’s actions, students have 100 percent control over how they respond to negativity and disagreement online, she said.

Weckerle urged parents to set a good example of how to act online.

“You have to commit to being a positive role model,” she said. “You can’t just talk the talk.”

Forum speakers urged parents to teach kids to recognize what triggers their anger and to discuss positions they disagree with instead of attacking individuals.

“When I talk about civility I’m not talking about pink ponies and rainbows. We live in the real world,” Weckerle said. “Disagreements and civility can coexist.”

This winter, in an open letter on the MCPS website, Starr addressed rude and threatening tweets he received from students hoping for snow days. The inappropriate use of social media inspired Starr to look into how students can safely use technology.

Starr called on members of the MCPS community to form a cybercivility task force made up of about 40 students, teachers and parents from across the county. The goal of the group is to look into ways to promote healthy online communication among students.

The task force, which began meeting in April, plans to break into subcommittees that will focus on specific aspects of the cybercivility initiative, such as parent outreach and safety issues.

Whitman parent Phyllis Marcus is a member of the task force, which met once to discuss the definition and importance of cybercivility. The group is currently slated to continue meeting monthly through August, Marcus said.

“I was very impressed by the presenter’s positions and viewpoints,” Marcus said. “I think she set forth a decent framework on what we need to consider.”

When students truly understand the consequences of posting mean comments on the Internet, they may think twice before they do so, Starr said.

“We hope this forum will encourage our parents, students, staff and community members to start discussing this difficult topic and thinking about the ways in which we can help shift the culture,” MCPS communications specialist Gboyinde Onijala said in an email. “This is just the first step.”

In the forum, Starr and Weckerle also emphasized the many positive influences on the Internet.

“The good thing is that there is more good online than bad,” Weckerle said. “The problem is that the bad is bad.”

To combat negativity, students can ask themselves if it is truly worth it to respond to disrespectful comments and instead focus on contributing to positivity online, Weckerle said.

“It’s not illegal to be a jerk. But why would you choose to do that?” she said. “If we are among happy people we will feel happy.”