My chosen area of interest for this assignment is an in-depth look at using social technology in the classroom, focusing solely on the use of Weblogs (also known as blogging) and the benefits that emerge for teachers and students using this technology.

There is no denying that the internet has made a profound impact on society and the way that humans communicate with one another has been redefined.  The workplace has immensely changed to keep up with the pace of advancement in technology.  Brennan (2007, p.3) notes that “schools may be some of the few remaining places of work that have changed little in comparison with other 21^st Century work environments”.  I feel that schools are no longer an institution with chalk and rote learning.  Schools must join the rest of society and become part of the 21^st Century.

Blogs are often defined as “a service that provides web-based tools used by individuals to publish directly on to the internet” (Blakey, 2006, p.3).  Over the past few years the popularity of blogs has greatly increased, as has the availability of free online tools that provide the user with an easy way of creating a blog without having to know the technical stuff.

There are many reasons I will use blogs in my classroom in the future to assist my students’ learning.  This belief has been shaped by my participation in my university subject ‘Current Issues and Application in Educational Computing’ and subsequent research for the assignments, including maintaining my own blog.  Such research has reveled that those using blogs in their classroom only have positive praise for the experience (Blakey, 2006; Brennan, 2007; Poling, 2005; Richardson, 2004; Wood, 2005).

However, as the classroom teacher, I believe I will only use a classroom blog, not individual blogs.  A classroom blog I believe will have “…the capacity to engage people [students] in collaborative activity, knowledge sharing, reflection and debate…” (Ward, 2006, p.847).  A classroom blog will allow the students to communicate and be able to “question and challenge each other’s thinking, leading to deeper and more meaningful interaction…” (Poling, 2005, p.14) than previously possible by conventional methods.

A classroom blog will allow an interface between student – teacher – parents – school community – world wide audience…the possibilities are endless.  Using technology is natural to today’s students so they will be highly motivated to use it in the classroom.  The possibility of having an internet audience provide feedback on their published work will be highly encouraging to produce high quality work.  They will be able to share their opinions, to create their own unique voice, on a variety of topics and have their peers react to it.  Perhaps, even engage with topics and opinions different to their own.  I believe individual blogs might not necessarily work in a primary school classroom; they might be best suited to high school students who can develop their own online presence.  In the primary classroom I want to encourage collaboration, team work, communication and reflection.  I also want to be able to have a level of control over online participation and moderate any external comments made on our classroom blog.

In conclusion, Wood (2005, p.11) aptly states “that ‘computer lessons’ are not another subject to be squeezed into the day, but used wisely, can integrate learning across many areas and result in the students developing high order skills”.  As is the case with blogging, the use of technology in the classroom must enhance student (and teacher) learning not hamper it.  Teachers must encourage students to see that computers and technology are an important tool which can broaden their horizons which confirms what McLeay (2006, p.38) states when she says “learners today are both producers as well as consumers of information”.

REFERENCES: 
Blakey, H. (2006). Blogger: the secret weapon to engage students and promote scholarship. Synergy, 4(1), 3-4.Brennan, D. F. (2007). 21st Century Learning: a reflection. Curriculum Matters, 6(4), 3-5.McLeay, J. (2006). Beautiful blogging. Teacher Learning Network, 13(3), 38-39.