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recent one-week study that compared the outcomes of two classes, a control class that received a lecture from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and an experimental section where students worked with graduate assistants to solve physics problems. Test scores for the experimental group (non-lecture) was nearly double that of the control section (41% to 74%).

So yes, I let my kids have a presence on the internet – first and last name and everything. And though I’m sure there are risks involved, the benefits for us far outweigh them. Here are some of those benefits:

They each have email addresses, but I receive copies of every incoming email. I proofread most of what goes back out as well. Youtube comments have to be approved by me, and I don’t allow youtube likes or dislikes. All comments on their websites also come to me for approval. As neither kid is 13 yet, neither of them have facebook accounts. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s not a perfect world. I say we forge ahead and embrace the positives in a smart, informed manner!

Given the comments I receive, pro and con, almost every time I write about social media - which range from conspiracy theories about the evil nature of Facebook to the unquestionable perfection of Twitter’s ability to disseminate news - I’d guess that we’re still in the grandiose pronouncements period when it comes to social media.

office workers everywhere struggling to stem the tide of messages filling their inbox, it probably sounds too good to be true.

estimates that only 10% of the 200 messages his employees receive on an average day are useful, and that 18% is spam. Managers spend between 5 and 20 hours a week reading and writing e-mails,

study what happens when students use these devices to connect, develop, grow and create. We also need to understand that success in the 21st century can not be measured by the bubble tests that were created to measure an industrial model of schooling.

 Do we want students to read, write, calculate, receive instant feedback, make global connections, develop a learning network, publish to the world? Of course we do.

I instead encourage faculty to start by adding a blog to their class. A blog can be set up in minutes and is easy to learn and maintain. Plus, there are a variety of studies proving that blogging can improve educational outcomes. For instance:

students post their written work to a blog before handing it in. The students received comments from other students and even faculty at other institutions, which improved their work greatly.

Every piece of information you receive online emits a welter of useful signals that can help you appraise it.

For starters, Web publication gives students a real audience to write to and, when optimized, a collaborative environment where they can give and receive feedback, mirroring the way professional writers use a workshop environment to hone their craft

"If you limit students' power by wrestling over permission to publish, then they'll ignore technology use in school."

People are drowning in a deluge of data. Corporate users received about 110 messages a day in 2010, says market researcher Radicati Group. There are 110 million tweets a day, Twitter says. Researcher Basex has pegged business productivity losses due to the "cost of unnecessary interruptions" at $650 billion in 2007.

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