Blogs (Web Logs originally) are a simplified form of online discussion board.  I think of it like a single-thread discussion board where one person is the author and everyone else can contribute.

The blog tool built into DotNetNuke, the software powering the district site, has some useful features.  We can load the tool inside the Intranet which is the portion of the web site that only people with login accounts can access.  As such, it is possible for us to develop a blog (or lots of blogs) that can only be accessed by students, parents and teachers.  This might prove to be very useful to us in the process of training young people to manage their identities and be responsible web authors.  In a secure environment, we could allow students to make the common mistakes that young people make in an environment where the prying eyes of scary people cannot see.

Also, the tool allows moderating which is currently set to "on" in this blog.  Moderating means that comments left to the blog do not get automatically published, but rather wait until the owner of the blog approves the comments and posts them.  This particular blog is setup so that if you have a login account to the district web site, you can post without being moderated.  I think that differentiation ability is nice.

What do you think of the blog tool so far?