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"While the first instinct in schools and districts is often to block services such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and even some blogging platforms, the positives of these tools often outweigh the negatives. When used well, social media tools connect all stakeholders in a school community in a ways that have never before been possible. "

"Social media pervades all aspects of modern society, particularly with the rapid influx of mobile devices. If used in meaningful and appropriate ways, it can transform a student's learning experience, improve communication with parents and community members, as well as support professional growth. However, teachers and administrators also confront the realities of opening up students to a global audience, and address real concerns about security, screentime, inappropriate behavior, and acceptable use. While the first instinct in schools and districts is often to block services such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and even some blogging platforms, the positives of these tools often outweigh the negatives."

This is a neat Learnist for folk who are totally new to Minecraft "Minecraft -- the blocky game of breaking blocky blocks and building larger blocky things while avoiding death at the blocks of blocky bad things. Millions of people play this game worldwide!"

"Why social media in school? It's a good question and one many schools are asking. Whether is because of the free-flowing nature of the content and material or the potential for distraction sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube many others are being blocked by institutions. It is my belief however that by blocking these sites and not embracing what they have to offer we are only creating and arms race with our students and missing out on using these tools to connected with and provide new learning opportunities for our students."

"Minecraft - 'a game about breaking and placing blocks' - is one of the world's biggest-selling computer games. When Jane Costello wanted to find out why her son Otis, eight, was so smitten, she quickly found out about its infinite possibilities"

Straw Poll is a quick and easy polling tool that doesn't require registration, but has only four voting options, blocks multiple voting, can be embedded and records answers in a pie chart

YouTube can be a great place to find educational videos to use in your classroom. But YouTube isn't the only place where you can find good educational video content. These services will allow you to organize playlists from multiple video sharing services. Please note that if YouTube is blocked in your school, the only tool in this list that will provide a work around for you is Miro.

"Many great websites stream video and audio as an alternative to a traditional TV/Cable/SAT service. Some are subscription based, like Netflix and Hulu Plus. Others are pay per view, like Vudu. And some are free, such as Hulu, ABC, CBS, NBC, and the BBC. There's only one catch. They're generally only available in one country. National broadcasting websites are only available in their country of origin. While some services are expanding internationally, like the recent arrival of Netflix to Canada, the expansion is slow and it's difficult due to the content deals that are made for each country. Another burdensome restriction on freedom is the blocking of social media sites by some countries and by many businesses. Thankfully, there's now an immediate and easy answer. And you just discovered it!"

Mashpedia is an online encyclopedia comprised of "LiveDocs", which are dynamic web documents displaying blocks of content related to the given topic, retrieved from multiple sources across the Internet in real-time. For every queried topic, Mashpedia loads information and rich media from Newspapers, Magazines, Blogs, Books, Wikipedia, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and further online resources.

"BANNING Facebook at school? Ha! When Thom McKay realized that his son had figured out how to get on the social networking site even though his New Jersey middle school had blocked it, he asked the boy in astonishment how he had done it. "Pretty easy, Dad," his son retorted. "Don't be an idiot. We know more about computers than the teachers do." "

"Published on 18 Mar 2015 YouTube for Schools is a great way to allow only educational YouTube videos to be available at your school while blocking out inappropriate content."