Week 9 Assignment #1


             After reading the article “The Impact of Using Blogs on College Students’ Reading Comprehension and Learning Motivation,” this week, it is very clear that using a blog can enhance a classroom experience greatly. Though the study found that the use of blogs did not increase student reading performance, it did find that it helped to create a very strong learning community. The group of students that used blogging in their classroom enhanced their social interactions more than the group of students using traditional print in the classroom. Using a blog can also give a voice to those that may get overshadowed in classroom discussions. The blog gave those students a platform to safely share their opinions.
              When the study looked at the teacher’s point of view it was apparent that they needed more training to help integrate this type of technology into their curriculum. I see that this is the case with many other technologies at the schools I am observing in. The administration is very eager to get technology into the classroom as fast as they can but they can forget that the teachers need to be well-versed in it in order for the technology to be effective. I also agree with the teachers from the study when they say that there still needs to be a mixture of new literacies and old in the classroom.

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