It seems from what I've read so far that some of us are much more at ease with the process of blogging than others and one of the main factors influencing this seems to be age.
Like Siobhan I find myself quite reticent to commit my ideas and quite anxious about what I write and agree that this is because spoken discourse is ephemeral and I can test ideas and sound things out them being set in stone. I can see the benefits of more fluid and unrehearsed writing (your point, I think, Sam) but I think it is surprising how alien it can feel if it's not something you grew up/were educated doing...like entering a new culture. This does help me sympathise with how difficult my students find aspects of academic culture eg contacting dissertation supervisors.
I think most of my students are very used to working with technology, but not necessarily used to using it as a tool for academic research and I think this can cause an awful lot of the problems already outlined- wasting time on internet, plagiarism, feeling inundated with information and not knowing where to start- and I think that, in some cases this can make students more needy and less autonomous. At HAUC we do spend a lot of time focusing on research skills (using library, avoiding plagiarism) with students when they first arrive.
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