I missed it while I was out of town, but there was discussion of using blogs rather than Blackboard on the Chronicle. The article reports on a meeting held at CUNY on how to improve online education. The various speakers outlined a number of reasons for doing so, among them:
- openness
- increased ability to customize courses
- cost
- reliability
Of course, people like the ease of use with Blackboard, the relatively easy learning curve. Some reported that there isn’t time to set up a blog for a course.
In part, I think this goes back to the argument TeachPaperless made about hiring geeks: for professors who use blogs, they are not at all difficult to use with classes. For example, look at silver in sf and Art3059. (Note: You’ll have to go back to earlier posts to see how David Silver used this blog with his classes. It is not just his course blog but his “regular” blog.)
Jim Groom summed it all up nicely. The article quotes him as saying:
“I think the model for the CMS is outdated given the new Web, and I think that’s one of the problems,” he said. “It can serve certain functions well, but it’s hard for proprietary CMS’s, whatever they are, to keep up with the how the Web is changing.”
Random Thoughts 
I think I could easily use a blog instead of a CMS for some of my classes. A few would need some adjustments, but most of my classes have to be taught by other teachers as well. This limits some of the things I can do.
‘it’s hard for proprietary CMS’s, whatever they are, to keep up with the how the Web is changing.’
Yes, that’s why an open source CMS is a better option than a proprietary option.
I don’t think BB is easier to use than (say) wordpress – unless you use only a subset of its fetaures.
Also, I don’t think it’s a matter of either/or: blogs and other tools will continue to be used alongside the CMS.