As usual I started writing a brief comment to your question, but it’s turned into a whole other post:

Blogs as vehicles for discussion

Cheers,

Mike

“My theory is that the creation of their own unique virtual space would inspire a greater sense of ownership in not just the course, but the subject matter as well; and this could in turn lead to a greater synthesis, appreciation, and retention of information.”

Can you tease out a little further what it is about the blog format/nature of the blogging process, in your view, that makes it particularly apt to have such results? Why is blogging of value as a medium through which to achieve and/or demonstrate achievement of learning outcomes?

In the case of the English course I mentioned, the instructor advised her students to go with an off-campus provider – either Blogger or Wordpress – rather than IT services on campus.

There are issues that arise with externally hosted student blogs of course, so I suspect the more courses using blogs at an institution the more the Powers That Be will want to gain more regulation and control.