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As educators, we must respond proactively to these real dangers children face in using social networking and read/write web resources. But unfortunately the knee-jerk reaction has been to block all social networking resources – blogs, wikis, YouTube, Flickr, and virtual worlds.

afety comes from education, not blocking. Even if social networking sites are effectively blocked in schools, most students will still get access to them

 Pattern Recognition, Environmental Scanning, Network Weaving, Foresight, and Conscious Awareness

“Those who tell the stories rule society.” ~ Plato

The following is a “laundry list” of recommendations Community Developers should consider in the creation of their social community.

Adopt a paradigm that views the community construction process as one of co-design that compliments and enhances your organization’s mission and values.

Create an emergent, evolving co-design with the collaboration of your intended members in developing a shared vision, community niche, and ongoing feedback loop on ways to improve design and usability.

Historically, when the nation has a cold, schools sneeze. Examples are legion. When the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik in 1957, President Eisenhower signed the National Defense Education Act (1958) aimed at getting better math and science teachers National problems of drug and alcohol abuse and tobacco smoking has led to states mandating courses to teach children and youth about the dangers of all of these substances. The Civil Rights movement in the 1950′s and 1960s’s spilled over the schools across the nation. Christian groups have pressured school boards to have prayer in schools, teach creationism, and vouchers (Educational Policy-2004-Lugg-169-87). The U.S. has competed economically with European and Asian countries for markets in the 1890s and since the 1980s. Each time that has occurred, business leaders turned to the schools to produce skilled graduates then for industrial jobs and now for an information-based economy.

This vulnerability to political stakeholders is very clear now with business and civic leaders pushing schools to be more efficient and effective in competing with China, Japan, and Germany.

In big cities where the problem of bad schooling is worst, results-driven reformers want mayors to take over schools and appoint their own superintendents, individuals who will accept no excuses from teachers and principals, will fight union rules, raise test scores, and create more charter schools.

I am sure that there are a few of you at this moment who really want to rage against the concept that we need an outboard brain. I get it, you have lived a lot of your life without the need. The problem is we have them now, and we are quickly raising a generation that is integrating with these devices, and the massive information source that is the Internet that comes along with them. Game over.

ow I want more. I want a brain computer interface so I don’t need to type and can work at the speed of thought. I want the screen projected on my retina so I do not have to carry around 15” devices just to gain information. I want to build rules based rivers of information that flow to me automatically when I need them. I want my outboard brain to offload everything that is not uniquely human so I can spend my brainpower on building good relationships, creativity and innovation. I want to focus more on the spiritual side of life, and the family and friends around me. Instead of dragging me away from them, I want it to be sophisticated enough that it frees me from many of the tasks I do today that take up time.