Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts have the ability to give young people a voice. The thought that they can present themselves to the rest of the world through the internet excites a lot of youth because whether or not others actually read their blog entries, they have the opportunity to make a clearly visible imprint on the world through a web site of their own. If the written word, music and various forms of visual art are avenues of human expression, these forms of technology provide one more forum through which those forms of expression can be displayed for and shared with others.

I think that there is great value in such applications of technology to the classroom especially in that it can connect students with experts in various subjects throughout the world and also because students can present their findings in the form of a web site or podcast that could be put on display for other students researching on other sides of the globe. No longer are student’s assessments being graded and then handed back to the student but instead they are handed to other learners to benefit from, critique and improve.

It does bother me when I see technology being incorporated for its own sake. A prime example is the various undergraduate classes that require Blackboard responses to assigned reading. Frequently, one student is required to post their thoughts on the reading and pose some greater question for the rest of the class. Other students are then required to comment on their analysis of the reading. What I see happen is that students only write something because they are required to and they rarely engage in a lot of thinking. Instead, they write the first good idea that comes to their mind so they can check off one more requirement. I know this because I am guilty of doing it myself (I promise that I am not doing that now!). The uncertainty of whether or not the teacher/professor actually reads such entries also left me frustrated as a student.

As far as how I would incorporate such technologies into my classroom, I can see having a class wikispace as being really beneficial. To be able to put all our course work together on one organized web site run by the students really excites me. It would incorporate real world problem solving as well as a lot of collaborative efforts between all the students and myself. Additionally, our work could be useful for others researching and studying similar topics.