Information Overload - and Waiting

I am at the stage in my learning with Reinventing Project-Based Learning and the trainings under the E2T2 grant where my head is spinning with a myriad of ideas, though there is no one anchor idea that has found itself embedded in my brain as THE IDEA.  This usually happens to me when I am at an Expeditionary Learning Institute...the learning is so intense, vast and demanding that I feel like my brain is on the brink of going on strike.  It is usually at this moment though, on the edge of a total brain malfunction, that a switch within the deep caverns of my brain, turns on - comprehension sets in and equilibrium is reestablish.  

In Reinventing Project-Based Learning, the book we are using for our grant book study, John Seely Brown, former chief scientist at Palo Alto Research Center in California, comments that teachers, when drafting project ideas should "Replace the term project with passion and think about your ideas again.  What would spark your students' curiosity and make them feel that what they are learning is interesting and important?  When you tap your students' enthusiasm, you increase the likelihood that they will dive into deep inquiry and come away with essential learning(Boss 2007)."  I feel that being part of this grant cohort, combined with the classroom set of iPods Stephanie Gallegos and I were awarded after writing a grant to our  district, that I am on the verge of truly grasping the importance of 21st Century Skills and the idea of passion-based learning.  

However, there are some questions still drifting through my brain.  In this past chapter, "Imagining the Possibilities", blogs and Wikis are used as examples of rigor and authentic products.  I completely agree...however, I would like to hear what other teachers have done with these products.  Are blogs and/or Wikis used as formative assessments?  Or are they used as summative assessments?  If so, how is a students' thinking measured?  And what is used as a criteria for success?

As I wait for my equilibrium, I'll continue to swim in my thoughts and enjoy the feeling of being challenged!  

Noel