I am helping start an online professional development community as part of our Elgg site.  My role will be to encourage and model the professional growth opportunities that are possible with this technology. That being said, I have a surface knowledge of school improvement and assessment, and when I come across information that may be valuable to this group I will share. I was doing a little research to find other bloggers posting on topics that will be valuable to this community and came across this post by Konrad Glogowski.

Here are a few of my thoughts related to the above post. Given my limited knowledge base of assessment, I may tend to over-simplify what I know is an extremely complex issue. Accountablility is important, but if the process is so complicated that teachers are never able to use the data to impact instruction...What's the point??? Another issue related to K-12 assessment that causes me a little/lot of concern, is the transition higher-ed has on K-12 curriculum and assessment models. The ACT/SAT test, courses, and grades a student accumulates during their high school years is all important to their promotion to post-secondary education. In the traditional "industrial age" model of education the transition from K-12 to higher-ed has been pretty smooth.  The changes underway in many K-12 schools is designed to prepare students for future success, but the courses and grades may not be what those at the post-secondary level are used to looking for. The last issue that I would like to address, is the whole student driven content and assessment. How can the education process be more student directed? This includes the assessment process. The use of web 2.0 tools allow students to be actively involved in self-evaluation, peer-evaluation, share with a world-wide audience, and become a participant in collaborative learning communities.