Dave – I came across your post via Stephen Downes’ blog.

If I were a student now, but armed with what I know about these sort of environments, I’d have two blogs, one public, the other for me only, maybe giving access to a mentor on the latter, and put much if not all my written work (with links, embedded images, videos, etc.) into one or the other of these. I would also keep a local copy of each post for archival reasons – self protection

If I then had coursework to do in a VLE, I’d copy and paste from one of these blogs or I’d link to a particular blog post. I keep control of my stuff this way, I decide what should be public or private, and it is not hard to work in other environments.

I doubt most students would operate this way, but why not make a suggestion of that sort? Then, the implied obligation in what you write above is on the student, which is where it should be in my opinion.

Also, on a more pedantic level, it is information that is abundant now. I’m afraid knowledge is still scarce, and wisdom almost entirely absent.