Online reflections: the implementation of blogs in language teacher education

It has been pointed out that today s technologies can serve as a catalyst in their efforts to create a community of scholarship (reflection) around the practice of teaching that extends well beyond the geographic confines of any given school of education or teacher preparation institution (Gomez et al. 2008: 128). Technology thus allows teachers to interact in ways that previously were not possible, and teacher education should undoubtedly draw on such a resource. Indeed, research indicates that apposite technologies have the capacity to enhance teachers practices by promoting reflection (Pryor and Bitter 2008), and the asynchronous modes of communication in particular are reported to foster this type of metacognitive activity (Kunz et al. 2003; Preece and Moloney-Krichmar 2003; Riordan 2011). To this end, the present chapter investigates the use of blogs as reflective diaries with student teachers on an MA in English Language Teaching programme. A corpus-based discourse analysis of student teacher reflections is provided in order to delve into the possible merits such a tool may hold for the promotion of reflective practice (Schön 1991). Further analyses based on the student teachers perceptions of this online application are also included. The chapter then closes with a discussion of the pedagogical implications of such research findings for the teacher education arena