Students as creators of evaluations?

I had a list of several blogs of teachers to look at for my last module of an aea online class.  I skimmed through a few and landed on this one ideasandthoughts.org/  The most current post was about customizing assessment.  You can read it here: Personalized assessment part 2

I really liked how he had his students assist in determining the criteria to be evaluated on.  He listed some great ideas to aid students' self evaluation of learnings with this google doc: Learning Project Criteria
More specifically his questions to assist in document learning would be applicable to even my elementary students. I think I will be trying to use these as blog starters to help in assessing my students learning.


Questions to consider as you document your learning:

What did I learn since last time? What can you do this week, you couldn’t do before?
How did I learn it? Was it a lot of reading, was it only practicing?
What was I thinking about as I was practicing? What specific things do I find easy, what is more difficult?
What do I think I might be able to accomplish before my next reflection?
What or who provides me with the best instruction?
Does it remind you of a past learning experience?
Where and when is the best time for me to learn? Describe and consider environment.
What do I admire about those who have mastered this skill? Who are these people?
Is there a particular learning style I use more than another?
what unintended learning have you experienced?

*text above is from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vHcJ8L7nZN0QyFFyu0AFwHic2-AjAmNHiig0q8tUOiU/edit

Fair does NOT mean equal...especially in the sense of getting technology in the hands of teachers!

Just got done reading TeachTheCloud's post on educational technology (Tools of the Trade). The gist of the article is that often it is not in anyone's best interest to try and stick all the great new technology tools in every classroom.  This is a viewpoint that I think I agree with whole-heartedly!  In my current school, built just 2 years ago, we all were given a document camera.  I know that there are many classrooms that this technology is going unused.  I guess it one of the things I can do, to help encourage others to use the technology given to them.  It is hard, though.  I think also that the idea of not all technology being applicable to every classroom is true too.  Some technology is better for certain disciplines than others; to equalize the placement of all technology may end up with money being spent on things that end up never being used at all!

Time, Time, Time ~ Ever wish you had more of it?

Time seems to be moving faster and faster as each year passes.  Summer vacations and Christmas breaks used to seem like they lasted forever; just a week seemed to last and last and last.  Nowadays, it feels like I blink and whoa..there goes another week of the year!  All of the "time flies when you are having fun" comments seem only to add to my feeling of panic. My to-do lists grow longer each day and all of the great things I find I want to implement in my classroom and teaching get lost in the piles.  I pledge right now to keep this post, right here, as my "to-do" list of items to pursue.  Posting my list here, I hope, will not let it slip by me any more!  I'll try to organize my ideas below:

Possible Teaching Organization ideas:
Teaching Word Processing as a more differentiated study, including pretest, plotted lessons based on skill, and a post-test to assess progress (Mrs. Sterlings's Word Pad)