The Internet: bully or tutor?

Cyber-bullying, sexting, Internet stalking. There is so much talk these days about all the threats technology, and specifically the Internet, poses to children. But we rarely hear a word about the benefits.

The Internet has opened up a whole new world of communicating and learning for children, including younger students.

Kelly Hines, a fourth-grade teacher in Washington, North Carolina addresses this in her presentation, "Little Kids, Big Opportunities" for the 2009 K12Online conference.

Rather than focusing on the privacy threats that Facebook and MySpace pose, Ms. Hines focuses her presentation on sites like wallwisher.com, wordle.com and edmodo.com that allow students to expand on in-class lessons with interactive and multi-media programming.

Edmodo.com, a social networking site, allows teachers to communicate with students, posting notes, polls and assignments. And Wallwisher, which allows students to post notes about books they read or videos they watch, encourages students not just to think about the stories themselves, but the sequencing of events and their own reactions.

"We were able to generate some very rich and powerful discussions over why they chose to sort the different sticky notes the way they did," Hines said of the site.

These websites, among hundreds of others available across the Internet, help even young students learn in different ways. And beyond academics, they teach the children to navigate the Internet, which will only become more relevant to their lives as they grow.

The Internet certainly can be a threatening place, especially for children. But it's a world that, if they learn to use it properly, can expand their learning dramatically -- as Hines shows throughout her presentation.

Kids are going to use it either way. So it's better they learn to use it now, safely and productively.