Comments on: Who’s Assessing Whom?

By: Karin Beil

Karin Beil — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:29:44 +0000

Excellent post! It is wonderful to see how you are exposing your students to 21st century technology and communication skills. It is evident that you are really encouraging them to think and be responsible digital citizens. Your school/community is very lucky to have you providing an excellent education.

By: Laurie Karolek

Laurie Karolek — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:00:34 +0000

I think the title you give your class is perfect. Shouldn’t all our learning be “under construction”?!
I love the variety of opportunities you allow your students through your questions. Your students must feel a great sense of accomplishment realizing they have so many ways to demonstrate their learning. I hope they learn even more through teaching others the valuable lessons they’ve learned from you.

By: diane

diane — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 02:45:44 +0000

What a marvelous method of assessment! No need to worry about plagiarism or cheating: your students will have the opportunity to select a question that interests them, then use the knowledge that they’ve gained to construct an answer that is personally meaningful.

By: Kim Caise

Kim Caise — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 02:36:50 +0000

What an awesome post! I love the name of your class that your expectation is that you are preparing them for life and not just for a test or upcoming assessment. Lifelong learning is so important and being aware of one’s digital footprint is as equally important. I think your ‘exam’ questions are fabulous and definitely require students to exhibit what they learned in your class in a real world context. I only wish more courses were structured as yours currently is!

By: Alan Beam

Alan Beam — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:51:37 +0000

I enjoy the read. You sure offer a wide range of topics for students to consider. I actual took a peak at Wordle and Glogster. Probably seen them before but they jumped out at me as some good tools.

As I said in my plurk comment … I really like your approach “Under Construction”. I believe today’s education is under construction whether we want to believe it or not. On tv right now Kaplan College is running an ad that I think is a powerful message to teachers who continue to hold on to traditional thinking. As a high school educator I know I hear often we can’t change since Colleges still demand traditional ways of teaching. The ad is a message to both colleges and K – 12 schools. Locally I teach a night class for a community college. I was told yesterday I was one of the lucky ones whose class had just enough to be offered. Many of the courses couldn’t be offered due to poor enrollment. Yet, this same community college has a online program and it’s exploding. If I heard correctly they have a 300% increase in enrollment there.

Ok off my soap box and back to your blog. I know school boards are looking for ways to cut budgets and technology makes sense to them since they don’t fully understand it (not their generation). Depending on their age I wonder what they would think if we cut from the budget, VCRs, Film Projects, Film Strip Projectors, what about ink pens, calculators, etc. Tools of their generation while they were in school. Sadly, those tools are far from being as important as the tools our kids need today.

WE MUST CHANGE OUR approach to reach not only this generation but the generations to come.

We are shock by the current generation and how advance they are … what will the future generations be. Message to K – 12 teachers & school boards … their coming!!!!

One last comment … to elementary teachers who say they don’t have time to teach the technology of today to kids. I bet they spend time with their kids discussing safety on the play ground, when they are out on their own, the don’t talk to strangers, etc. So whose teaching them how to use blogs, social networks, instant messaging, etc. We pride ourselves on preparing the kids for their future when in reality we are falling way short of educating kids on how to use the tools effective and maybe more importantly safely. We can say it’s the parents job but come on .. most parents are in worse shape then teachers. We need these tools in our schools to do our students justice. There has to be other things we need to cut?

Ok…sorry form the bouncing around.

By: Paul Bogush

Paul Bogush — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:43:12 +0000

Ha-I thought I was the only one who said that. If you have to tell your kids to study for a test, that just proves they didn’t learn it during the unit. If they have to study it, they are memorizing it. It they are memorizing it most will be gone in 72 hours, the rest at the end of thirty days.