Technology in the Classroom

I am about to begin my full time student teaching at Brigham Young University Hawaii and in preparation for this, I get to take a class called Technology in the Classroom. I am so excited to learn more about the many different technologies available to me as I learn how to be a good teacher.
In my classroom in the future, I plan to use technology to help students become interested in the news and different ways of interacting with other people using the internet. I hope that by using the different technologies available, my students will develop a love for and interest in using technology to help them learn. I plan on using a blog for my classroom where students can log on and comment on the lessons we have and provide feedback or ask more questions about the topics we discuss. I also plan to have them visit various news sites and comment on interesting articles that they read and email me the post they make.
I do not have a lot of deep experience using technology in the classroom; however, I know that it will be beneficial to my students and provide a fast way for me to get feedback and answer questions or address concerns my students may have. I want to learn more. It will also help students to improve their verbal skills and writing techniques while they learn how to express their opinions. I hope to learn more about my students and how to be an effective teacher by using these methods in my curriculum.
I feel that if I were to have had a tool like this available to me, I may have been more willing to ask questions or voice my opinion about topics I learned about while I was in high school. There were many times while I was in high school, or even now in college, that I have something to say, but there is not time, I am embarrassed to raise my hand or the teacher did not leave time for questions, whereas if there had been a place for me to go and take the time to voice these things and receive my own feedback as a student, I would have loved it. I hope that by using these tools, I will be able to address some of these issues with my future students.