The Ruminate blog compares briefly blogs and discussion boards, noting that although each has its uses, blogs promote obligation and responsibility; ownership; thinking, responding, and contemplating; and postive practice. About the last one, Ruminate writes,

Learning to reflect on what is being taught, to express questions— even of the unanswerable kind, to examine one’s own learning process, to think critically about new knowledge and the way it is acquired… these are the essential stuff of learning how to learn and then learning effectively. Blogs present an opportunity for practice (in both the traditional and the Zen senses) in a form that many students, particularly the emerging digital native, intuitively understand.