The evaluation of students' use of technology tools.

Upon looking at the scaling rubric provided by my professor at NLU, two important thoughts come to mind. 1. How do you seriously evaluate a student's work using a set of numbers and specific criteria. I will not be speaking for any of my colleagues I'm sure, but in my own personal opinion this is a very difficult thing to do, and there are always certain students who you can not grade using Bloom's WHATEVER! Everybody in the education world now is all about rubrics, test, and the next big educational philosopher. Here is my question..... What happened to personal attention and mentor ship? To me the the assessment of a student's work is plain and simple. It's the final product. Did the student do what I asked them to do and how did they go about making that happen? These are things that cannot be measured, correctly anyway, with the use of a rubric or test. It can only truly be a meaningful educational experience for the student if there is a very real feeling of one on one mentor ship. Meaning this, the teacher demonstrates how to properly do things. They break it down into how they themselves would go about finishing a project. Then they guide the student through the creation progress. They must be careful not to crush the creativity of a student because more than likely the student will come up with their own solutions to a problem. This is what we want as educators! To teach the students HOW to learn. Not to make them memorize the way we would do things, but rather teach them how to come up with there own solutions through trial and error. This is how real life works.
2.Why is everyone so worried about giving students a number that represents there success. I know it may seem like I'm on a soap box here, but what are we really teaching our students. That you need to do this or that to get a good grade, or score? Or, that projects and problems are solved with careful thinking planning and are not ever finished just because you got a B on it. There used to be a sense of pride and responsibility in doing a good job at anything. Getting it as perfect as you can and taking the time necessary to do so. Many times are students are thinking to themselves.... Well, I only have to do this and this to get a decent grade. Where as in the past, there was more time spent on the small details of a project instead of the Final product. I can't help but be afraid that with all the rubrics, and standardized testing that we are raising a generation of ROBOTS! "Do as we tell you, or you will not PASS!" That's enough to scare anyone into not thinking for themselves!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/04/eveningnews/main1472010.shtml

http://www.gallup.com/poll/19552/testing-testing-schools-too-much.aspx

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED430052&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED430052