Blogs for class discussion

I found blogs very helpful in sorting out my own thoughts in preparation for class. As a tool for teaching I can see how students might benefit from blogs in much the way a reading journal might work. However, I think there are also some structural challenges to keep in mind. Within 704 it seems that dialog among blog posts was minimal. The small amount of cross posting or connections between posts I think may be part of the personal reading journal style the posts seem to take. Thinking about how to structure blogs as also a discussion tool, might be something to think about more in detail. Are there specific ways instructional approaches need to be set up for using blogs?

That particular question is really what I came away with after using the blog for discussion. As a student I am always sort of left with a bit of curiosity about exactly what my posts should do. Though I think the act of posting helped me when it came time to meet in class, I am unsure of where the posts fit in the larger picture of the class. I think as an element of process – a blog can be very helpful. The chance to either write a post quickly or to compose in a word processing program and then copy and paste make posting flexible in important ways. It seems thought that these different options might be thought about more from the larger class standpoint – how does posting fit in to discussion? I think this sort of question may follow throughout the different discussion formats we make use of.