Professional development conferences

Our blog was discussed at a recent educational conference looking at innovative ways to use ICTs, social software, collaborative learning environments, etc.
See Thusrdays presentation to findour blog being discussed:

http://www.breathetechnology.co.nz/conference

Thanks to Jenny from Breathe technology for sharing our blog and getting feedback on whether or not we should be allowed free access to the web for learning.

:-)

question for educators [no doubt some of my students will read this and comment anyway]

do you believe the students should have access to the "real world" of the net, with guidance, advice, cyber safety education, monitoring by school IT administrator, etc, or should they be restricted from genuine net access and genuine collaborative social software and interaction because of the possibility of access to inappropriate content?
I ask because I am trying to achieve genuine interactive learning and there are pressures to restrict my class's access to the internet to avoid any possibility of "something going wrong".
essentially, my 10-12 year old GATE [gifted and talented education] students can learn online with greater richness and possibilities of interaction and feedback, or they can be restricted to a contained environment.
What do you think? In this case, a contract is signed by all students and if that is breached then they lose their rights to net access.
i sincerely hope some of our "readers" will begin to contribute to enable us to justify our current blogging format.