"The concept is simple enough. Create a Web page. Update it regularly with brief personal reflections or witty commentary, sprinkled with links to other pages. Put new entries at the top of the page, pushing older ones down. Voilà, you've got yourself a Web log. - David F. Gallagher"
My Comments: This weblog was started as an aid to composition, and reflects 10% of the students' final marks. The first page contains instructional information for students with two links : one to the actual weblog and the other to Blogger, where students have to sign in if they want to add anything to the blog.
This is how it works:
"Although weblogs take many forms, as will be demonstrated in class, ours will follow the example of many of its contemporaries by serving as a filter for the massive amount of information available on the topics we'll be studying. This filter functions as each student-author posts links to high-quality, relevant, web-based information; adds explanation or commentary to these links; and makes general observations about our topics."
The instructions are quite strict, a necessary thing as this weblog is to be evaluated and students marked on their postings - In this way, you can guarantee student participation, I suppose:
"Each student-author should post a minimum of one and a maximum of three entries to the blog each week. Of those, a minimum of one and a maximum of two should include links to webpages you've discovered that you believe will be useful and important to your classmates. Any additional entries may contain simply personal observations and ideas. "
The tutor has also added links to the weblogs that students are expected to monitor over the term that the weblog runs.
The weblog itself can be seen here: http://ep.blogspot.com/
The more I investigate, the more I find examples of how weblogs have been used successfully with students in all manner of educational contexts.