Blogging with students

I'm a big fan of blogs, obviously, and I use them often in the classes I teach and with student teachers. I think it provides a way to keep up-to-date on professional topics and connect with other educators, and share daily reflections on your growth in understanding content and teaching. And there are a growing number of K-12 teachers using blogs as a teaching tool in their classrooms. I came across the Powerful Learning Blog, particularly this post on blogging with high school students to improve their persuasive writing. In the post, the author discusses how blogging as an instructional tool supports her students' writing development, particularly their ability to write and support a thesis statement. Students need to think critically about their topic as well as the audience of the blog when writing pieces for the blog. She also includes that blogging as a genre to support student writing doesn't have to stay at the high school level, and links to a first grade class blog. Pretty cool stuff. How do you think you could use blogs to support your students' critical thinking and writing skills?