Teach students to search and they can begin this activity. In addition to searching, they'll learn the content area, information evaluation, Internet navigation, reading skills, and categorization. From there, it isn't a big stretch for them to develop presentations, web tours, or assignments for exchange with other students. Some forms of paper journals and homework are messy, get lost, and leave teachers with terrible hand cramps if they want to give any feedback. Email submission gets rid of the papers, is easier to track, and allows typed comments instead of handwriting.
Students can exchange assignments for correcting.
In our information age, students need to filter the mountains of input they receive into manageable amounts and forms. Web-based activities which teach the process of recognizing bad or misleading information, sorting and organizing data, understanding source credibility, and understanding persuasion, bias, and logical fallacies are easy to design. There will be more on this topic later. Individual students or groups can cycle through over a week, a month, a term, or even a year. This keeps their attention directed but improves the variety of their instruction.