Podcasts and the Internet

I think it's very important for people to know about cyberbullying and cyber-ethics. I think the Internet can be a very scary place, and a lot of children and students feel invincible and safe. I think it's important for teachers and the school to work with the community to find a reasonable compramise about how the Internet should be best utilized in school. I think that each community is going to have a different opinion and it's extremely important to feed off of the community and parents. I think the school has a responsibility to keep the students safe to the best of their ability, and Internet use should be a monitored and constructive time within the classroom lesson. In this day and age, it's foolish to say that the Internet shouldn't be allowed in the classroom, because that would only be a disadvantage to your students. I heard about a website that allows a person to create their own social network, so it's much more controlled and only specific people are allowed in, I think this could be a great tool for the classroom. If teachers created a social network that is specific to each class, therefore limiting the people who can access it to your students alone. I imagine it's something like pipeline, but to be honest I'm not entirely sure.

About the podcasts, I'm surprised by how successful I've been finding quality podcasts. There's so much information on the Internet nowadays that it's almost overwhelming. I feel like the Del.icio.us website has really helped me narrow down the quality podcasts, and it's done a nice job refining my searches. I struggle with when I would use a podcast over a videocast though, if you could incorporate an audio and visual in one thing, why wouldn't you? I like that we're researching videocasts as well. I feel that both have a very useful place in the classroom, as always if properly incorporated into the lesson plan.