Chapter 10 Teachers' Thinking and Visioning with New Technologies

Objective #4: Differentiate blogs from diaries and traditional journals and ways they can used to guide student learning.


Blogs (weblogs) have quickly emerged as a socially accepted form of communication by almost everyone including media outlets, politicians, and citizens alike. Blogs are similar to a journal in the way that they allow the user to express his/her feelings and ideas. However, a blog also allows the user to include pictures, video, hyper-text, audio. While a journal is typically used for the person writing it, a blog allows the user to communicate desired feelings to anyone and everyone.
Blogs can aid teachers in guiding student learning. However, as with all information on the internet, students need to be able to decipher what sites are credible and factual and what is not. Blogs can be used for: journaling, discussion, reflection, and in collaborating with others. Educators have been more cautious in accepting blogs as appropriate mediums in the classroom, but have quickly realized that today’s tech-savvy 21st century learner responds well to the use of blogs.


My question for this chapter is regarding calculators. Although I do not foresee myself asking my English students to use a calculator, or even find myself teaching a Math class, I am curious as to who makes the decisions on calculator usage? Throughout all of my schooling calculators have been an issue. I’ve taken intuitive calculus classes that allow calculators and I’ve taken algebra classes that strictly forbid the use of the machine. Is it the teachers rule, or is the teacher simply acting under the school’s policy?

In my future classroom I am certain that I will enlist the aid of blogs, podcasts, and other multimedia sources to aid my students learning. I am especially excited about the use of blogs. Some students are more reserved when it comes to speaking in class, but leave little out when they write. I think the use of a blog or electronic journal is a great way to prompt the more introverted student to share their feelings and creatively show their knowledge.