CHICAGO — Huddled around a cell phone in a West Chicago school, the five boys immediately caught a teacher's eye because the use of such devices is banned there. But when officials looked more closely, they discovered a new disciplinary issue. The 8th graders were using the camera phone to watch video of a fake fight they staged in a bathroom at Benjamin Middle School. They had filmed multiple rounds of a shoving match — no more than a couple of minutes long — and planned to post it on YouTube.

"I'd read about instances like that," said Philip Ehrhardt, superintendent of Benjamin School District 25. "We weren't aware of it being done here."

The students involved were suspended, from one to four days for engaging in potentially dangerous behavior. School districts throughout the Chicago area have discovered, often painfully, that video-recorded fights have become an Internet rage for teens and young adults.

Confronted with legions of Web-savvy students willing to push the envelope, educators increasingly are caught in a bind as they try to make sure bones aren't broken while not stifling creativity, experts say. Administrators at Benjamin are considering offering classes on blogging and video techniques to channel misguided activities into productive learning.

Since 2006, nearly 1,000 security personnel in Chicago public schools have received special training on MySpace, Facebook, Xanga and other popular sites to help maintain safety, a spokesman said.

A student who sneaks into a bathroom for a YouTube shoot could slip and hit his or her head on a sink and be seriously hurt, officials say. Fake fights also can quickly escalate into real fights.

"Who ever heard of YouTube five years ago?" asked Steven Klein, director of student affairs at Elgin, Ill.-based Unit School District 46. "The Internet opens up all kinds of possibilities."

In surveys, a majority of 12- to 17-year-olds who use the Internet say they watch videos on sites such as YouTube and Google Video. Surveys also have found that 14 percent of Internet-using teens say they have uploaded a video, said Mary Madden, senior research specialist for the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Amateur fights — between cheerleaders, between nerds, on the bus, in the cafeteria and in myriad other settings — have emerged as especially appealing to teens and young adults.

"The boys think (filming fights) would make people think they're tough, they must be popular," said Morgan Wisted, an 8th grader at Benjamin, where news of her classmates' suspensions spread quickly. "A lot of people are just kind of laughing at it."

But Alicia Wisted, Morgan's mother, said she and other parents take the students' infractions more seriously. Wisted, who keeps the family computer in the kitchen and doesn't allow her daughter to have a MySpace page, said she applauds school administrators for trying to keep up with the technology students are mastering.

"They're seeing a lot of things that they wouldn't be allowed to watch normally. Everything has to be sensationalized these days," Wisted said. "Parents have no idea what's going on."

Five years ago, user-generated videos on the Internet were still novel because the technology needed to produce, upload and share video wasn't as accessible to mainstream audiences. YouTube launched in 2005, becoming the first widely adopted video-sharing site that offered free hosting of video content that could be viewed easily from around the world. Other video-sharing Web sites soon followed. Young Internet users have caught on quickly.

Educators and Internet experts say the fights themselves aren't different from the trouble kids have always engaged in. They mirror images young people are exposed to in pop culture — from action movies to the professional wrestling.

The difference today, they say, is that teens and young adults have the tools to broadcast their sometimes-shocking behavior to wide audiences.

"Kids have always been imitating (wrestling), but they've been doing it in their bedrooms," said Susannah Stern, associate professor of communication studies at the University of San Diego. "But for the first time, they have the technology to record it and make it public."

And that's where educators say they have to start paying close attention.

Because the student code at Benjamin didn't address YouTube or fake fights, the students were disciplined under an existing rule that bans fighting on school property, officials said.

The students' parents were called in for a discussion and each of the boys — the two actors, two video shooters and a bystander — were given suspensions that matched their involvement, Ehrhardt said.

For other school districts, the issues have been equally difficult. Last summer in Elgin, a parent complained to school administrators about a punching match between two girls that was posted on a MySpace page. Administrators viewed the fight but decided that because it happened off school grounds during the summer, there was nothing they could do about it, Klein said. In St. Charles Community Unit School District 303 and other districts, police liaison officers have made checking popular Internet sites an everyday part of the job.

After the Dec. 20 incident at Benjamin, officials said they planned to re-examine existing rules. A school committee is working on a long-range technology plan, and officials are looking for ways to teach students how to use their skills in positive ways, such as blogging or shooting video for the school newsletter.

Administrators also may ask the school board to reword school codes to fit today's tech-savvy students, Ehrhardt said.