Content and thinking skills are the most important components of any learning tool, but they are components that are common to all forms of educational communication and not specific to blogs. The most important feature of a blog to me is its potential for interaction, collaboration and immediacy. These are not particularly easy to demonstrate in an exam setting, although I am trying them with some success in a school setting. I think that the appearance of a blog is generally more engaging and fun for Middle School students than pen and paper.
When deciding what to put into a blog in order to encourage student engagement, I think that the three most important components of a blog as opposed to other forms of communication are,links (especially games), film clips and images.
Games are important with a young audience as a suitable educational game is motivating for young students and may encourage exploration. Students are very familiar with games and easily engage with such material.
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/kids/space/index.htm
Another very good tool is to import film clips as todays students are visual learners and readily engage with film. I found this very beautiful one accidentally on youtube and the students them selves may happen on such gems through blogging.
But the thing that I always think is most important on any visual medium is an image because images are important in English study where students have to read visual language as well as verbal language, because very high quality images are available on the web, and these expand the students' view of culture and history.
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