The break was great and it’s good to be back blogging. Even though I didn’t blog over the break I found myself reflecting about so many things. One of those thoughts centered around evaluations of different kinds. On a recent interview with a reporter I was asked how weblogs were evaluated. How do we measure the results of learning from blogs? How do you evaluate the different blogs? Is there research? There are no easy answers here.

There is some research and I sent that to the reporter. Mostly the research I find is at the university level. I’ve given lots of thought to evaluating blogs. I feel an immediate resistance to the idea of stacking student blogs up and comparing them in some sort of lock step method that would defeat its very essence. I’d feel the same way about educator blogs. It’s not the blogs we need to evaluate but the learning that occurs. Blogs are the vehicle. Granted it is a unique vehicle that allows us to connect in ways we never could before.The thought of grading blogs hit my mind with a thud. I shutter to think that may happen at some point. I’m afraid the real learning, the connectivism that results, the shaping and reshaping of ideas, and what happens in classrooms when students begin caring about what they are reading , writing and thinking will be put to the side. The caring that comes when they realize what they write is important and meaningful. That comes from the connections. That comes from teaching them reflection. Teaching students to reflect about what they are learning and then to write about it is difficult yet the most important and empowering thing for their learning. I’d like to see this done a whole lot more on blogs. Then it’s available for many to see and learn from. Opening these exchanges up to a wider audience has been incredible. I wish I had had far more discussions and modeling of this kind of learning and less on the content part. We don’t give much time to this in schools. It is not measured. Can it be measured? Certainly not in a multiple choice format. I do think we can teach our learners to honor and love learning. Relish it and grow with it. Connections need to be at the forefront with content second. Our current views of learning have got to change. Measuring learning via standardized tests is not improving learning. We need to concern ourselves with covering less material, not more, and work at finding ways to share the joy of learning, be creative, use our imaginations. Learn how to communicate with each other and listen to different ideas. Learning how to make meaning out of our learning, how to be a citizen of the world who can see multiple viewpoints and share theirs in a way that will add to the conversations and help our students to think deeply and powerfully. We need time to develop this. We need help from a bigger community.Then what about our educational blog awards? I want blogs to be recognized, but I’ve had mixed feelings about educator blogging rewards. It is truly nice to be recognized and it feels good but at the same time there are so many worthy blogs that this type of comparison is so very difficult, really almost impossible. How in the world do you choose from a list of four when you value each one in different but such worthwhile aspects ? They all add so much to the conversations and learning. It seems to bring out a lot of feelings that are counter productive to what I believe we are all trying to accomplish. Yet at the same time this type of recognition does bring some validation to educational blogs which usually are not even valued enough to be acknowledged as a category in the various blog mentions, awards, etc. It also seems to be a topic that we shy away from as an item for discussion. So how do we resolve it? Do we even need to? Probably not.

I do know that It is not as important as thinking about the learning and reflecting of and by our students. We all seemed to have reached varying points of re-examining our thoughts on learning and the learning of our students. This is a good thing. All these different points can be shared as we keep making connections. The potential for changing education is enormous. Ahhh, there is so much to learn and as usual I have more questions than answers but the quest continues.I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year! Who knows what the new year will bring? I hope we will see an even greater increase of other student and educator voices added to the mix.

This post defintitely goes to the top of my list of noteworthy posts. “The Kind of Evaluation that Matters” It sums up so eloquently these educational blogging communities where students have choices over their learning. This post gets to the heart of what is so special about blogging with students. It is putting the writing and learning squarely in the hands of the students and they are responding (and teaching us as they go! It’s the journey and the learning and the unknown paths you end up traveling. It is a community like none other. Konrad really hones in on the issue of giving up control and letting students have choices on what they write and learn. Konrad discusses how this shift in having students primarily create the course< content has had a profound effect on him as a teacher and on his classroom. I have had similar feelings. Konrad points out how it is not easy to move away from set curriculums and standardized tests because it means (to some extent) relinquishing control. He talks about a community of writers and learners where students discuss and share their work. He says that to the students, the best kind of evaluation was in the form of discussions with peers or comments written by others about their work. I've said it in round about ways. I call it the process, the dialogue, the conversations,the voices, the dynamics of learning together that is unique to blogging. Konrad puts it into words so precisely and so effectively. Konrad says that Linda Rief said it best and I have to agree ….

“Through their portfolios of writing and reading, I know all my students. They are articulate learners because they continually practice discussing what they know and how they know it: by sharing with me, their peers, the community, and other grade levels. Learning to make meaning in writing and reading is not objective, as our evaluation systems would seem to indicate. We must become more flexible in our assessment of students’ work. When kids are given choices in what they read and what they write, and time to think about what they are doing, their writing and reading get better. When we trust them to set goals and to evaluate their learning in progress, we will begin to realize that they know much more than we allow them to tell us through our set curriculums, our standardized tests, our writing samples.”

(Source: D. H. Graves, and Sunstein, B. S. (Eds.), Portfolio Portraits.)

If you don’t have the blog of proximal development on your list of blogs to read, add it today. It is outstanding.

Nancy tells it like it is……..

President Bush, my fellow americans, parents in our school community… we’re no slackers! We’re working hard. Our days are spent studying about the needs of diverse learners, backward designing around the big ideas to effectively teach the standards through mediated scaffolding/conspicuous strategies/use of direct instruction, collaborating, doing peer observations, reflecting, revising, debriefing lessons, assessing periodically, using the data to drive instruction, planning for differentiation, moving, pushing, pulling, all to nudge along our students, most of whom are english learners struggling within a cycle of poverty, violence, grief, fear, and loss… and none of this seems to be on your timeline… your NCLB timeline!

We know the importance of our work. The urgency. Our kids need a ticket out of the cycle. Our kids are bright. They can achieve. We can achieve. But, you just don’t know what we’re up against. Police chase/helicopter overhead this week. Monday, we arrived to broken windows and stolen computers in the 2nd grade pod. As I was giving a demonstration lesson in a classroom the construction crew arrived, hammering and drilling to replace broken window grills. And the news arrived–we didn’t get the CTAP grant we applied for so no digital cameras, no digital narratives… no one wants to hear our stories.

No, I’m not making excuses. I can learn new strategies, change, take risks, stand up to scrutiny. But… the stuff of school is people… students and teachers… human beings, not robots… and we do bleed…

Yes, the stuff of schools is people. Nancy has an excellent post about what can happen when evaluation of our teachers and schools is totally based on the results of one test. I have written about this several times before. I see the grave consequences every day when I walk in the schools….

• excellent teachers feeling stressed out and not valued

• students getting sick when test day arrives

• schools being pitted one against another

• teachers trying to do the impossible with little help from those outside of education

• good programs in art, music, PE being cut so more time can be spent on basic skills

• prepping, cramming, teaching for tests is rampant

Yes, we teachers want accountability but by multiple measures and a whole lot of common sense about developmental stages in children. I hate this skill a day mentality. We need time to talk, discuss, reflect and connect in our classrooms so we can share the joy of learning. If not, the consequences are indeed grave.

Frontline has a comprehensive website, Testing Our Schools,  that really hones in on the issues here.

Today I met with the fifth graders from the NewsQuest group.  They completed their evaluation questionnaires. 

Dane is hopeful…..

If an outsider visited your site, what would you hope he or she would think about it?

I would hope they would think of children as being capable of more than they had first anticipated.

Dane also makes an excellent point about weblogs when he answers this question…..

How does having a weblog affect how you learn? How does it affect how you write?

When I post my newly created writing, I then have something to look at and see how I can improve on the next post. I like to look back on my papers and a weblogs allows you to do so. This isn’t as easy as when you have written your stories on paper.

Ben’s Reflections

Brianna’s Reflections

Dane’s Reflections

Jacquline’s Reflections

Kayla’s Reflections

Lindsay’s Reflections

Lucy’s Reflections

Melanie’s Reflections

The classroom teacher of the students I have been working with on NewsQuest greeted me with great excitement yesterday. She had a folder in her hands and could not wait to share the contents. She had just received the scores for her students on this year’s writing test. Each year fifth graders in Georgia take a writing test. Students are scored and rated as emerging, developing, focusing, experimenting, engaging, or extending writers. The link above explains those categories in more detail Mrs. Mateling said her children have never done better on the writing test than this year. She kindly told me that much of the credit needs to go to me. I told her no, I was sure the weblog writing helped but she was the classroom teacher and that’s where credit is due. However, I view this as somewhat of a validation of a real focus on writing on weblogs for students. Eight of her students are in my group of 11. Five were rated as extending writers and 3 as engaging writers!