Journals, like blogs, can be public to the class, or private to the student and instructor. Instructors often use journals as a private form of communication between students and instructors. Journal entries can include text, images, links, multimedia, mashups and attachments. Students are encouraged to use journals to explain their understanding of the course materials to instructors, voice their opinions, and to voice any concerns about the course.
Journals can be owned by an individual student or can belong to a group of students. If a journal belongs to a group, each student in that group is able to post in the journal and view all of the journal entries.
Information about the Journals tool from the student perspective can be found on the Journals Student Orientation and Resource page. Please share this resource with your students.