Evaluating Progress

I realize this is late, but the work still needs to be done.  I have found myself in a position currently that has really opened up my eyes as to how to achieve my goals.  First of all, I feel that educators, as one of my colleagues pointed out, need to listen to their students' ideas.  I must say that I have learned a great deal from my students but until this past week, it never dawned on me to use their input for my own problem solving and goal achieving.  First of all, my first goal was to create new, content rich, project based assessments while implementing technology.  Since this was our first week back from Thanksgiving, I realized that we have much to be thankful for.  Sometimes the most insignificant thing to us could mean the world to somebody else.  This is why my government students are currently working on a service learning project that is devoted to using technology and students' ideas.  On our campus, my students and I are currently planning a letter writing campaign by sending personal notes and letters to our soldiers in harm's way.  Through Operation Gratitude (http://www.opgratitude.com/), my students will be collecting letters to soldiers written by our students and staff.  Students will have to find ways to promote the event (creating digital images and flyers), use problem solving and critical thinking skills, presentation, and technology (create PowerPoint or Movie) for the presentation.  For the most part, this is a student driven assignment, and I am just trying to find ways to assess my students.  They are required to have daily blog posts, attendance will be figured in some way, student presentations, and a final reflection post.  I am still looking for ways to improve this, but this is the first time I have implemented anything like this in my class.