Totally agree that students should be encourage to blog. One other thing is that it teaches them that there are consequences for what they say. Once you publish something on the web, you are accountable for it. I think this is an important lesson to be learned.

The majority of students blog little blobs of text with no meaning to anyone, or just post youtube videos and internet questionairs. I've seen thousands of student blogs with nothing more than this.

Students should be encouraged to blog, but only if they actually have something to say. Most don't, unfortunately.

Hmmm... I'm gonna start a nice blog