Encouraging students to maintain a blog is particularly valuable when working with ICT Mindtools.  It encourages students to think reflectively about their learning and progress and promotes collaboration and sharing of ideas between students.  This is vital in the development of thinking skills.

‘Using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom’ by David Huffaker
“This paper explores the role of weblogs or ‘blogs’ in classroom settings. Blogs, which resemble personal journals or diaries and provide an online venue where self–expression and creativity is encouraged and online communities are built, provide an excellent opportunity for educators to advance literacy through storytelling and dialogue.

This paper explores the importance of literacy and storytelling in learning, and then juxtaposes these concepts with the features of blogs. The paper also reviews examples of blogs in practice.
The characteristics of weblogs such as the personal space it provides and the linkages with an online community create an excellent computer–mediated communication context for individual expressions and collaborative interactions in the form of storytelling and dialogue.”

From E-magine Newsletter, June 15, 2004