Classroom Blogging: Learning Experience, Fun on the Computer or Both?

Today, I brought my Reading & Writing class to the computer lab. They learned how to use blogspot and uploaded their first essays. (click HERE to see our new class blog)

Last semester, I created a similar blog for a different group of ESL students. What I failed to do at the end of the semester was conduct a survey to generate honest feedback about their "blogging" experience. I'm really into surveys and usually give them to my students three times in a semester: first day, midterm and last day. The surveys usually consist of open-ended questions as to solicit thoughtful, personal responses. They are anonymous, by the way. Further, a survey is a way of getting the students to share thoughts that they may not otherwise share in their journals or in our mentoring sessions. Surveys especially help me, as a young teacher, adjust my plans in order to maximize the students' growth.

Anyway, here is a draft of some questions I'd like ask my students about today's blogging experience.

Blogging Survey:
1. What did you like most about using the blog? What did you like least?
2. What was the most valuable skill that you learned from blogging with the class?
3. Do you think posting essays on a class blog is helpful for your reading/writing skills? Why/why not?
4. Would you like to continue posting your essays on our class blog? Why/why not?

We've only just begun blogging so the students may not have much of an opinion this early on. They may change their thoughts by the end of the semester, once we've dedicated more time to it. Hopefully, these questions will generate some insightful opinions. At the least, the survey will get students to think more about the benefits or purposes of having a class blog and answer my big question: what is the true value?