When will education 'get' social media?

I have just watched Clay Shirky's TED talk on 'How the internet will (one day) transform government'. Clay Shirky's TED talk

It raised a number of very interesting issues which I think can be easily translated to the uses of social media in education. He starts by citing the fascinating story of how 9 year old Martha Payne's school dinners blog 'Never Seconds' http://neverseconds.blogspot.co.uk/ became so successful and popular that she was told by her Headteacher to stop taking photographs of her school dinners - a decision quickly reversed by the local council following an online uproar. For me, this reflects the general approach that most education authorities and many educators currently have towards social media - i.e they mostly don't get it. The Headteacher of course should have been calling Martha to their office to praise her for showing the initaitive and creativity required to set up an interesting and valid blog rather than trying to silence her.

In my opinion there needs to be a much clearer understanding, or at least a will to develop an understanding, of how social media can be embraced in eduaction. The opportunities for creative learning experiences are vast but largely untapped from a profession which at all levels appears to be fumbling around in the dark, generally advocating the banning of 'dangerous' mobile devices and limiting their experience of social media to a peripheral role tantamount to criticising from the sidelines. Is it not time that educators got hold of the reality of social media and started to explore some of the uses that these tools can offer?