Students in RancheView's Grade 5 class learned how online bullying can be offset through kindness.

RancheView students like at many other Canadian schools have been paying close attention to the Olympic Games and in fact, are competing in their own mini Olympic circuit. Learning what incredible dedication and strength go into competing at that level, they also learned the value of sportsmanship.

Bill Belsey, shares shortly after the games started in South Korea his social studies class learned that short track speed skater Kim Boutin who originally came in fourth place was awarded the bronze medal due to being fouled by a South Korean skater. While the students were excited to learn Boutin would bring home the bronze, the display of poor sportsmanship that followed saddened them. "Some people in South Korea, in particular, started trolling Kim Boutin and basically cyberbullying her on her Instagram account and other social media avenues. Kim became quite upset as anybody would imagine and very distraught. Indeed she did receive the bronze medal but when we were looking at the pictures she was crying; while part were tears of joy it really showed it wasn't all happiness."

Belsey says the online attacks went as far as a death threat against the Canadian athlete and that is when Belsey decided he couldn't just stand on the sidelines. Having Belsey for a teacher, the students understand there is zero tolerance for cyberbullying as Belsey was the creator of the most visited worldwide anti-bullying website, bullying.org. Teaching the students that social media can be used in a positive manner, Belsey, got a little help from the students. With the classroom having their own Twitter account the students tweeted positive messages of encouragement to Boutin in Pyeongchang. "The kids began to do drawings with positive messages and I showed the kids how to scan their pictures and turn their hand done drawings into digital images and then we began tweeting out messages with drawings attached to it."

With Boutin shutting down various social media sites, Belsey decided to go a different route in hopes that Boutin would receive the messages. "I found one of the speed skating coaches and I tweeted to him and said 'Hi I have these Grade 5, ten-year-old kids here in Cochrane, Alberta we would like to send some positive messages of support to Kim Boutin is there any way you could share them with her?' ...and let's face it, it is in the middle of the Olympics and he's coaching, but I thought it's worth a shot."

Taking that chance, Belsey learned last week that Bart Schouten, a Coach with Team Canada connected with Boutin at Canada House and showed her the messages. "A few days ago, someone took a picture of him with Kim and she is holding up an iPhone or smartphone and on it is one of the positive messages of encouragement that Kim was looking at with a huge smile on her face."

The community at large will be the first to hear the news as the students were off last week and have no idea that Boutin received their messages.

Belsey is hoping students take away a very important message from all of this. "It's fine to tell kids don't be mean on the internet, I am very aware of the negative aspects of technology and yet as a teacher, I enjoy using it in the positive ways we can. I thought let me show the kids and mock that we can use social media in a positive way and to make a positive difference and I am hoping that that becomes a takeaway for the kids. Like wow, we put a smile on Kim Boutin's face."

Hoping the story does not end here, Belsey has his fingers crossed to connect the students and Boutin together when she comes to the Calgary area. While obviously, he can't promise anything to the students he is hopeful to introduce them.

"It's a little story in one way but it's a big story in another way. In an age where there's so much negativity and a lot of it is attached to social media these days, I thought for kids here is a real positive lesson of how you can use social media to make a difference in the world."