A meeting, a weigh-in, and then another meeting. Then some grading - a.k.a. assessment. As in, let's catch up and some stuff. I have to finish up the Fake Assignments in my 3pm English 110 (which aren't due back to them until tomorrow I realize) and then tackle the online English 120 assignments from last week. When all is "said and done," I'll go home to a crockpot of Italian yummy-ness. True story.

I feel like I rush so much
only to have to wait anyhow.
And I sometimes feel like I'm the only one who does this.
"I have to get there on time or they'll be upset" but
when people are late to meet up with me, I generally don't make a peep.
Generally.
So... when it comes to grading/assessment, I have to wonder
why I rush through the papers. The students want their grades, but
should I be rushing to help them out when, honestly, they procrastinated
in doing a quality piece of work anyhow.
That's not all of them but it's kind of like this:
"Dear Teacher, I'm going to push off doing this project until the night before;
you gave us over two weeks to work on it, but eh. And then after I'm done,
I want you to assess it right now-now-now." Doesn't seem fair.
And I'd like a little more fairness in my life.
Wouldn't you?
Now, do I take a long time to assess things?
No, under 2 weeks for major projects and papers
and less than a week (or less than half of a week) on basic daily work.
Yeah.
And, would it benefit me to complete that stuff faster?
Sure, but, again, I'd rush only to wait.
Besides, I need to calm down more, take things easy.
And students, in this now-now-now world, need to be taught patience.
It's win-win.

And when YOU WIN and I WIN, it's a good time.
With that said, I got quite a bit of grading done today. I just didn't get to ALL of it.

Sometimes, I wake up and I'm still tired.
Sometimes, I wake up excited for the day's events.
Sometimes, I wake up and panic sets in = I have A LOT OF STUFF TO GRADE.

But, then, I get to campus.
Unload my stuff.
Eat a muffin.
Figure out the new email system.
After making a list of things to grade, trying to lower my anxiety, I log into eCollege. HOLD ON. I'm done with Paper 1 in ALL my classes? OMG. I did ALL of them on Friday? HOLY CRAP. GO ME. Nice JOB, dude. Pat on the back. Seriously. What a treat! I'm too good to myself sometimes.

I mean, I still have OTHER stuff to assess, but that's like 1 of the 3 monkeys off my back for the day already. Woot!
Yes, I just wooted. Get over it. Can't? Eh. You win. I'm too happy to care.

My online English 120 students handed in Paper 1 last Saturday before midnight; I have officially finished one of those class "off" as far as that paper is concerned. Don't worry; I'll pat myself on the back... and grab another cup of coffee before I tackle the second online class. That class is larger.

This is my life; I'm okay with that.

Well, I've made it 10 papers into each class thus far... and it's been a roller coaster ride of sorts. Some students "get it" and some do not. That's about how it is in the world, isn't it? I was telling our workstudy yesterday, as she assessed bonus quizzes that had humorous answers on 'em, that even IF a student had no clue how to write, they could take a student example from Doc Sharing and mimic it. Not exactly copy & paste, because I'd catch that, but use it as a template. Even our workstudy thought that that was a good Plan Z for any student. I tell them what's required, I show them what others have done; my class is no mystery. None. Show up, be creative, think about stuff, and BAM = good grade earned.

Has anyone else heard of the blogging teacher who got into trouble? I think it's interesting.

In my online classes, I have 44 papers to assess. My on-campus total is 24.
So, that brings my total to 68 which, at about *10 papers a day,
is about a week's worth of grading at a medium pace.
Yep. And so it begins.

I'm caught up elsewhere, to a certain extent.
Before I weigh-in and have a noon meeting,
I should wrap up my 3pm class (English 110) stuff.

*I think I'll shoot to assess 5 in each class each day = 15 papers.

p.s. First paper of the day was a WordPerfect document. Ugh.

If you are a student in my online class, you could earn some bonus points
by finding a cool picture on Flickr.com (the Creative Commons area, of course)
and emailing it to me no later than 5pm on Friday, February 18.
Try to find one that I can place funny text on. Thanks.

I'm caught up with English 110 assignments (except for P1) on campus... I may start on those in between writing conferences today and my 3pm meeting.
Or I could attack them tomorrow after assessing my online English 120 stuff; those students have a paper due this Saturday, so wrapping up those English 110s quickly would be a good idea.

As the semester wraps up... here's what I have to assess:
Today or Monday or Tuesday: English 110's P6 and Peer Review. Give Amanda the bonus quizzes to assess. Letter written in class on Monday will be self-assessed.
Today or Monday or Tuesday: WL240's Individual Projects.
Tuesday and Wednesday: English 120's assignments from this week.
Tuesday and Wednesday: WL240's assignments from this week.
Thursday and Friday: Final assignments in all classes (except for the WL240 Final Collages) = I need to calculate how many things that'll be.
After Friday: WL240's Final Collage Project (student evals due at midnight Friday of Finals); I may have to use Monday Dec. 20 to wrap up things and chuck final grades into PeopleSoft.

What happens if... I take screenshots of a paper and time the shots in PPT; could it look like I'm writing or assessing or something...? I feel like playing around with that during this short week in order to a) be creative and b) take my mind off of other stuff. Yep. I could try out the screenshots on jaycut.com too or WindowsMediaPlayer (or whatever that program's called).

"I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus last night." Turns out, it was Tiger Woods.

Anyhow...
New desks in the office. Oooh la la. I get easily distracted when there are things to be put back together. Re-arranging to be completed. Oh well. Thus far, I've kept up with grading. Stuff was turned in Saturday & Monday; those items were assessed last night. Right now, a few assignment have come in at midnight last night and I had a 10am deadline today for my English 110ers. So, yea. I should get to those things before my 4pm deadline today (for my English 120 on-campus students).

This morning, while getting ready, I cranked some Christmas tunes. Then, I wondered... could I really get in trouble for blasting Holiday music? I mean, REALLY? Even late at night... blasting "Silent Night" would be ironic right? And funny to me. Hmph. Perhaps. Something to try out. An experiment.

"So, this is Christmas; I hope you have fun."