social networks in the classroom - aha moment

This is a short video of students from Van Meter talking about how they use social networking sites in their education. I found it extremely interesting that these are just 8th grade students and the things that they have done in school.  They are lucky to have a teacher with vision and a school that allows these sites to be used in the classroom.  We do allow our students to use skype but on a very limited basis and YouTube is completely blocked from them. As I have researched different topics in this course I have found so many things on the internet that would be so cool to use in the classroom if only the students were allowed to have access to it. Many teachers do not even let have their phones in their classrooms. If they see them they take them away and here is a teacher that is encourageing her students to use twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Skype to communicate with other students all over the world and even to talk to authors and people in fields of study that her students are exploring. This is just really awesome and I wish that we were seeing more of it in our school instead of trying to keep the outside world away from the students.