Examining Preservice Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Contributions to an Online Discussion Board of a Blogging Activity (Published)
This paper examines the themes that emerged from an analysis of preservice secondary mathematics teachers’ contributions to an online blogging activity. The blog was conducted as a standard component of a college Euclidean Geometry course offered in a university in the western United States. Participant contributions to the blog were analyzed with MAXQDA, a qualitative data analysis program. About twenty major themes emerged in the online discussion. These themes demonstrate that the preservice mathematics teachers who participated in this study raised a variety of important and relevant issues that they may not have otherwise considered. Additionally, this study suggests that blogs could provide a great opportunity for students and classroom teachers to share their voices and perspectives on an open, free, and public forum.
Keywords: Blogging activity, Euclidean geometry, Online discussion, Preservice teachers, Web 2.0 technology