tumblr

http://tumblr.com

Interesting analogy.  "If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks."

Simple easy way to share anything: thoughts, feelings, stories, pictures.  More structured than blogs but easier, faster and more fun to post.

If allowed by school system.  This would be simple easy to learn.  Groups could share information on a given project or topic with all participants seeing the same information and being able to respond to the information from other participants.  All participants will have ownership into the final project, etc.