Teacher professional identity development with social networking technologies: learning reform through blogging

Implementing student-centered, inquiry-based science pedagogy in secondary classrooms, though identified as the goal by all science education professional organizations, is rarely a reality in today's classrooms. Therefore, teachers committed to reform often lack a "local" network with whom they can interact around this new professional discourse of reform-minded teaching. Emerging social networking technologies such as blogging offer potential to support professional learning through the development of like-minded communities not geographically or temporally constrained. This article reports on how 15 secondary science teachers committed to reform used blogs to support their efforts to develop reform-based practices. Findings illuminate varied ways in which participants did so and what they gained as a result.