Brakes Off!! and Radio Off?

Well the last semester of my education degree is underway. In the first week of class we were lucky to have two interesting presentations.

First Dean Shareski talked to us about the 20th vs 21st century classroom. I really enjoyed everything about his talk. First of all it was done using google hangout so he talked to us and gave us a presentation over the internet from his own living room. So cool! The main point of his presentation is that in the 21st century we have to move towards using technology as a learning asset. He pointed out that there are all sorts of text online that we can have students reading and reflecting on for classes. This is a cool idea because it gives different students the choice of what they want to read, so they can pick what they are interested in. This not only allows me as a teacher to see what students can pull from text and the depth of their reflection but it also allows them to learn something from the text. The only thing he talked about that concerned me was sharing student work online with the world. This is a great idea which I agree with but I am not sure how well it will work. By this I mean our students seem to be more bubble wrapped than before so I don't know if the parents would like the idea of their kids putting their own name out on the internet everywhere.

John Finch, from Manitoba education, was the second speaker we were lucky to have. First topic of the day was making sure schools are using the most cost efficient technology. For example he said a lot of the Brandon schools have gotten smartboards installed and are not using them fully. I do agree with this between all my placements one had posters over it, another was just used as a projector and the last was used more correctly. The other big topic that took over was the issue of Copyright. A couple things found surprising is that teachers cannot play music or videos in class unless they are used for educational purposes and not entertainment. I actually zoned out for most of this to be honest, this is because as a teacher we are told to pick are battles. I figure this is a law and it is not a battle I want to get into... mainly as it would most likely end up being a waste of my time and energy that I could have used to help my students other ways. Also thinking about this from the other side if I was a singer or actor then I would like to get paid for people using what I made regardless of it's use. So I guess it will be Radio Off and I will be signing up for song writing/singing classes :p.

Brakes are off and it is your turn!! Any parents out there have a say about there kids posting school work online for the world to see? Also has anyone come by a, really low, cost efficient technology that would be useful in a MATH classroom?