Podcast Reflection #4: Opening things up to really prepare kids

So, for my first podcast I decided to listen to the musings of Kevin Honeycutt and listened to his podcast Opening things up to really prepare kids.  His podcast was not quite what I had expected in its formalities.  He spent the entire 27 minutes just casually talking with Kay Tibbs, another professional in education about the topic at hand and that was opening up technology to prepare the students for the future.  This particular idea intrigued me because I can see huge benefits in favor of the technology but also rather large draw backs as well.  One of the big things Kevin and Kay discussed is how we have to allow the students to use the internet and all it has to offer the kids and educate them on that and to also not keep them from it.  Many schools completely block kids from using the internet and that can be such a hindrance to there learning because the internet is something they will use extensively the rest of their lives.  Rather then block them from using it when need to guide them in the direction of correctly using it.  Obviously, having a completely open internet interface is not something you can do in a high school or middle school because of the stupid stuff kids would do, but, you can't block all media or all social outlets because of the potential distraction. Take Facebook for instance. A teacher can take that social outlet and use that in the classroom or as a way to have student interaction outside of the classroom.  Make a classroom group page and require students to do some of the stuff we are doing in this class such as a reflection on a question or topic.  That is taking an internet resource that schools deem simply a distraction right now and using it for a school related purpose. The main message they were trying to convey over all is to not cut out technology because there are negatives to it but rather figure out ways to turn those into positives and reach the most kids possible.  They even discussed implementing cell phones in the class rather then taking them away.  So many ideas that are beyond my comprehension at this point but I look forward to learning more in the realm of technology.