Late late late at night and I have just finished what I call "mid-point updates" for my online students. I've stopped giving midterm exams, but I still let students know how they are doing on their journals, discussion participation and if they are missing any essays or the term paper topic. Doing high-quality, meaningful assessment, and giving appropriate feedback, is not easy. And it is time consuming, even with tools like spreadsheets and merge letters. Next week I will have to figure out a similar process for the classroom students. I am trying to design equivalent experiences for both cohorts, whether it is a group assignment, or feedback on their performance in some aspect of the course.

Off to Samsonville tomorrow; we are planting garlic that we got from the Saugerties garlic festival a few weeks ago. I am really looking forward to seeing those beautiful leaves and the mountains surrounding the reservoir. Maybe I will take some pictures if the weather is nice and I remember. I'm not sure whether I am more eagerly anticipating the leaves or Ma's promise of eggplant parmesan! I hoped to bake a pie tonight, but the evaluations took forever. So maybe I'll take the apples along and do it tomorrow.

Something coincidental: in Jeneane's survey, she asked about readers for your ejournal. One of the things I wrote in response was that my comments are few, and they come more often in the form of an email message. Also that people I know tended to react to my writing more in the past, when I emailed essays and short stories out to a small group, rather than now that I have a web presence. Now, I hear most often from people I do not know in person. Then suddenly, I get comments from two people I do know! So in honor of Halloween, and also in response to their comments, after the weekend I am going to post some photos of Halloween from many moons ago. But just now it is time to go to bed.