Blogs and forums both support communication. The differences between blogs and forums are fairly subjective, and the "best" choice often revolves around issues more closely attached to style than substance. Because of these similarities, using blogs and forums within the same site can get confusing.

If you have multiple courses on one site (which we will cover in Chapter12: Supporting Multiple Classes), you might want to use forums for more general discussions across all courses, and use blogs as the means for managing discussions for a single courses. In this situation, people know that to communicate for a specific course, they use a blog, and to communicate outside of the context of a specific course, they use a forum.

However, in the absence of a clear distinction between blogs and forums, we recommend using either a blog or a forum. This can lead to a site that is easier to use, which in turn contributes to a better learning experience. Whatever choice you make in structuring...