Until recently, one of my favorite features of Google Reader has been the ability to “share” (read: publish) interesting articles to my own personal RSS feed, which I cross-published to my Twitter account and on a sidebar feed on my portfolio website.  Additionally, Google Reader users could subscribe to each other’s Shared Items feeds right in Reader, which was a great way for me to read the posts my friends found insightful or useful without having to rely on Facebook or Twitter, where they would be too likely to be overlooked due to the high signal to noise ratio.

This past fall, however, Google saw fit to remove the sharing function (the generic nature of which allowed users to publish to just about any service) and replace it with a “Share to Google+” button (which forces users to use their social networking product to share stories).   This turned an incredibly powerful, relatively open publishing platform into yet another walled garden, a move I (sort of) understand from a business standpoint, but one that frustrated me immensely as a user.

Despite Google’s shortsightedness, I’ve still been able to rely on RSS to help me concoct another solution for when I want to share interesting articles from my Reader.  I have repurposed my Delicious account to be my surrogate Shared Items feed.  If you would like to read the articles I find interesting, you can now find them at Delicious.com/damian613 (or if you use RSS too, subscribe to the feed).

So what happened to the existing items in my Delicious account, the special education/school psychology related bookmarks (that I also published to my portfolio website)?  Simple – I moved them all over to Diigo (RSS feed), with tags intact.

If you’re interested in either my shared bookmarks in special ed/school psychology or the blogposts I share periodically in the areas of technology & education, please feel free to drop by my Delicious & Diigo accounts, or better yet, subscribe to the RSS feeds (while the format is still alive!).

TL;DR: Moved some of my public stuff around:

• Google Reader Shared items now here (RSS feed).
• Shared bookmarks in special ed/school psych now here (RSS feed).

Assistive technology (AT) can be a daunting topic for some educators to wrap their collective heads around.  The word “technology” itself can strike fear into the hearts of some, and assistive technology* (as traditionally defined in the educational world, anyway) has a reputation for being prohibitively expensive.  What I like about Dr. Brian Friedlander‘s reference guide Assistive Technology: What Every Educator Needs to Know is that it provides a basic overview of assistive technology – what it is, how it helps – as well as solutions, organized by category, making it a very accessible entree into AT.

One component I think educators will appreciate is the section entitled, “Low-Tech Options”.  Dr. Friedlander reminds the reader that “technology” need not be shiny things that beep; “pencil grips, highlighting tape, and tape recorders” (Friedlander, 2010, p. 1) are just some examples of easily overlooked technology options that may help students.  My own observations and experience with tools such as whisperphones support this; “technology” is a very large umbrella under which many different tools fall.

Beyond that, Dr. Friedlander explains the federal definition of “assistive technology” and provides overviews of AT evaluations and the theory of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), as well as how that ties in to AT.  He goes on to provide several examples of technology solutions that may help students in the areas of accessibility (e.g., keyboard, mouse, dictation, text-to-speech, general OS accessibility settings), writing, math, reading, and organization.  Pricing information for these resources is not included in the guide, but some of the resources he mentions are already built in to Windows and Mac operating systems, and others I know run the gamut from free to… well, not-free, I suppose, but at least there are options.

The four-page laminated guide concludes with a list of online resources for further information/support with assistive technology, including free access to audiobooks, more information on UDL, and links to “evidence-based practices for integrating instructional technology to support the achievement of all students” (Friedlander, 2010, p. 4).

While I think every educator could benefit from this overview of assistive technology, I imagine it would be of particular interest to special education teachers, Child Study Team members, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and administrators who may want to implement AT solutions with their students, but aren’t quite sure where to start.  This is not an exhaustive tome on AT, nor is it meant to be – it gives the reader some jumping-off points for further exploration, which is sometimes all that is needed in order to move in the right direction.

Assistive Technology: What Every Educator Needs to Know is available from National Professional Resources, Inc., and starts at $12.95 apiece for the first 1-10 copies (discounts are available for bulk purchases).

*Really, don’t we all use assistive technology every day?  How did you get to work?  How did your meals get cooked?  How did you record your thoughts on paper or in digital form?  

Reference

Friedlander, B.  (2010).   Assistive Technology: What Every Educator Needs to Know.  Port Chester, NY: National Professional Resources, Inc.

Today I learned about two teaching techniques that were new to me.  You may have been using these for years, and if so, I’d like to hear about your experiences with them.  If not, feel free to take and use these as you see fit.

WhisperPhone

In one class, I initially thought I misheard when students were instructed to take out their “whisperphones” and start reading independently after they finished a task.  I Googled “whisperphone” on my non-whispering phone right there and found that it is indeed an actual product line.  The version I saw was a little plastic “handset” into which students read quietly; my understanding is that the handset (or headset) acts as a voice-feedback device that allows speakers to hear phonemes more clearly.  I can’t say for sure, never having seen this before this morning, but take a look at the company’s research page and come to your own conclusions.

Foursquare Plus 3

In my English teacher days, I used to have students use graphic organizers or plan sheets to organize their thoughts.   Today I learned about a slightly different take on graphic organizers: Foursquare Plus 3.

I’ve written and deleted several attempts at an explanation, but wasn’t satisfied with any of them.  Check this slideshow for an explanation instead (it’s the only result for “foursquare” on Google that doesn’t return something related to the location check-in site).

Do you have any experience with Foursquare Plus 3 or the WhisperPhone, good, bad, or otherwise?  See anything new here you might be giving a try?  Leave a comment!

Beyond the immediate benefits, however, I thought it would be a good “dry run” of online learning for me, as my upcoming doctoral program is a hybrid online/F2F format.  Having been through graduate school once before, I’m familiar with the F2F part, but I’m curious as to what the online part will look like.  With my first online learning experience now behind me, I thought I’d write down some of my initial reflections on the process.  Please note that what follows is not a critique or endorsement of the content of this program, but rather the online format.

Benefits

My biggest takeaway from this experience was how much I liked setting my own pace and focus.  This course covered a broad array of topics under the “ethics” umbrella, and as I expected, I was more knowledgeable in some areas than others.  The fact that this course was available online meant that I didn’t have to sit in a lecture hall or hotel conference room and be spoken to (or worse, read a PowerPoint).  I was able to wear what was comfortable and sit where I wanted (I completed most of this course horizontal on my living room sofa).  I was able to skim over some parts, and spend more time focusing on others, both in reading more closely and in utilizing external resources to learn more.  While the course provides the same content for anyone who takes it, the asynchronous nature of the delivery allows for greater differentiation than the standard lecture hall setting.

Limitations

That said, I acknowledge that reading text is far and away my preferred method of receiving information.  I’d sooner sit and read than watch a video or listen to a recording, at least for academic purposes.  As such, this particular course was right up my alley (about 200 pages or so of reading), but I can see how folks with preferences for audio or video might find this format limiting or off-putting.  Also, while the course did allow for self-reflection with some case study-style exercises, the drawback to self-study is that you’ve only got yourself to work with.  Here is where having someone else in the room to bounce ideas off of or discuss options with would come in handy.

Final Thoughts

As part of the course evaluation, I left this comment for the folks at MSPA:

I would be very likely to take another online-only course for NASP-approved hours.  I am not always able to attend NASP-approved events in my area due to my own professional and personal scheduling constraints, and I applaud the MSPA and NASP for promoting online learning opportunities for their members.  I wish more state associations would follow suit.

My own state school psychologists association usually has two conferences a year, but I have only been able to attend one or two in the last six due to demands at work.  The national association convention is in a different city every year, and long-distance travel hasn’t been in my budget for some time (although I do hope to attend the 2012 NASP Convention right here in Philadelphia!).  That leaves me very few options for obtaining those necessary NASP-approved hours, but this course really fit the bill.

Although doctoral study will obviously be much more in-depth than a single PD course, I thought the experience would be a nice teaser of what’s to come.  I’m happy to say that I enjoyed my first major formal online learning experience, and I’m looking forward even more to starting the hybrid online/F2F format in a few weeks.

Many Web startups operate under the freemium business model: provide basic services or functionality for free, then charge for more advanced features.  Dropbox, for example, provides the basic 2GB of storage & syncing for free (plus extra space granted via their referral program), but charges a monthly fee for users who require significantly more space (50GB or 100GB).

I’ve always been the frugal sort, so when I can take advantage of a service for free, I do.  There are instances, however, when I’ve decided that the value a service provides is worth paying for upgraded features or functionality.  Two such services I use are Evernote and Remember The Milk.

Evernote

I’ve mentioned my love for Evernote enough times on various social media outlets (including this blog) that I’m sure I come off as a shill.  I won’t retread that ground here (see the previous link for my writeup on how I use Evernote as a school psychologist), except to say that it is the single most valuable technology tool I use in my job.

If you compare their free vs. premium features, you’ll see that Evernote offers quite a bit at the free level – 60MB monthly upload cap, SSL encryption, optical character recognition, Android/iOS apps).  The two key factors that convinced me to pay up ($5/month or $45/year; I pay by the year) are these:

• File type synchronization: This was the number one consideration.  If I was just using Evernote for plain text notes and the occasional PDF, I could probably get by on the free plan.  In a given week, I’ll spend much of my computer time working in most of your standard office suite filetypes.  The free model only supports syncing of PDFs, audio, ink, and images, in addition to the standard Evernote plain text notes.
• Offline access: I’m accessing Evernote from my Android phone and tablet more frequently, and having offline access to certain key notebooks is vital, both personally and professionally.  I can’t always guarantee I’ll have a strong cell signal or Wi-Fi access, but as long as I have one of those devices, I’ll have access to information.

Remember The Milk

According to my records, I’ve been using Remember The Milk as an online to-do list longer than I’ve been blogging, longer than I’ve been on Twitter or Facebook, and certainly longer than I’ve been a school psychologist.  I’ve moved away and used other, similar services for short periods of time, but I always keep coming back to RTM, primarily due to the ease with which I can manage multiple lists and arrange items by due date or priority.  The layout on the screen is clean and white (I’m a big fan of that style, if you couldn’t tell from looking at my blog), and I can save searches for specific task types to “Smart Lists” (e.g., “Due Today”, “Due This Week”, “Urgent”).  These functionalities, however, are all available to all users, for free.

After several years as a non-paying customer, I decided last fall to pony up $25 for a year-long RTM Pro subscription.  I suppose the fact that the RTM Android app is only available to Pro customers was a factor in my decision, but as much as I like it, it’s not nearly as essential to my day-to-day functioning as Evernote.

At the risk of sounding sentimental, I like paying for these services because of the value they represent to me.  I feel like the benefit I gain from their use is worth paying $X per year, whether I have to or not.  Beyond that, though, my subscription fees are an investment in improving the services I use daily, and Evernote in particular has made major, major improvements and upgrades to both layout and functionality with just about every release in the last year or so – in other words, I see more of a tangible benefit in these releases than just bug fixes (not that those aren’t important, but they’re not terribly fun for end users).

I doubt I could afford to pay for every single free/freemium Web service I use, should they all decide to start charging.  At that point I’d have some serious decisions to make, but I can say that Evernote and RTM would still make the cut.  Whereas I would likely be able to find comparable free alternatives to some of the other services I use, I have yet to find competing services to top these two, free or paid.

I’ve previously declared my love for Evernote as a tech tool for school psychologists, and I stand by that assertion today; it is the single most useful technology tool I’ve started using since taking on this role.  As I’ve already blogged about how I use Evernote, today I want to focus on a few other technology tools I use as a school psychologist that are totally free of charge (I’ll write about the stuff I pay for later this month).  These tools all have very slight, if any, learning curves, and they have made my organization and access to information practically ubiquitous.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud storage & syncing service that gives users 2GB of space for free (click this link to sign up and you and I both get an extra 250MB of space free!).  Dropbox can be installed on as many computers as you wish, and once you connect your computers to the service, you can access any file stored in your Dropbox folder from that computer.  You can also access your files via the Web interface.

I like using Dropbox not only for the syncing capabilities (I can access any file I need from my work or home computers, plus there are apps for Android, iPhone, and iPad that allow access from those points as well), but for the backup feature.  Any file that might be accidentally deleted can be restored from the Dropbox website; furthermore, Dropbox maintains 30 days’ worth of versions of saved files, similar to Google Docs and wikis.  If you have documents you wish to share with a large group of people, Dropbox also allows users to share individual files or folders via the right-click menu on the desktop app (see how I used Dropbox to put my career’s worth of lesson plans online for public consumption).

Dropbox has received some negative press lately due to issues with its privacy policy, but their responses have satisfied me that my data are not at risk with them.  Still, better safe than sorry, and I sometimes use 7-Zip (another free utility) to zip and encrypt files that may contain sensitive information (there are also several third-party free & paid encryption options, such as BoxCryptor, SecretSync, and TrueCrypt).  Use a highly secure password generated by LastPass or another similar utility (I believe you can password protect Microsoft Office files right in Word, Excel, etc.), and your data are about as safe as they’re going to get, short of being printed out and kept in a fireproof safe.

Google Apps Suite

I have been a loyal Google Apps user since 2006, first of their Gmail/Google Calendar services, and later, of the entire mail/calendar/docs/etc. apps suite on my own personal domain.  So much digital ink has been spilled on the many strengths and weaknesses of these products that I won’t even try to sell you on them here (Google the reviews!), but again, the ubiquity of access (computer, phone, tablet) of Google Calendar has been fantastic.  It took me a little while to get used to the idea of creating new ‘calendars’ for different topics (e.g., ‘Counseling Appointments’, ‘IEP Meetings’, etc.), but I soon saw the value – each individual calendar acts as an overlay, so you can view or hide any calendar at any time.  If I know I have no IEP meetings in the near future, I hide that calendar.  I created a calendar called Absences to track my sick & personal days taken in a year; hiding all the other calendars for a few seconds allows me to glance through my year and see exactly when & why I’ve taken days.  When I’m done, the other calendars return with just a few clicks on the sidebar menu.

Although I’ve had a Google Voice number since before Google acquired GrandCentral, I didn’t have much use for it – I’ve had even less use for it since the advent of porting cell phone numbers and since we ditched our home landline almost 2 years ago.  What has been useful, at least in a work context, has been the ability to send text messages through the web interface.  With Google Voice, I can send text message reminders about appointments, meetings, etc., directly to parents & students without giving away my personal mobile phone number.  I’ve written before about the benefits of text messaging, and since then, further stories have broken about the beneficial role of SMS in increasing flu vaccine adoption and quitting smoking.  Although I only recently started using Google Voice at work, I’m looking forward to implementing it more frequently this coming year.

Cel.ly

Text messages aren’t just good for appointment reminders, they’re great for communicating instantly with large groups of people.  If you coach a team or advise a club (as I did), you know that e-mail has gone the way of Betamax and the 8-track for many of today’s kids.  With Facebook being banned at many schools, I’ve found the best method for reaching groups of students directly – especially during or toward the end of the school day – has been via text message.  They don’t need to be in front of a computer to receive the message, and it goes directly to their phone, which is almost always within arm’s length (NB: I worked at a high school; YMMV if you work with younger students who don’t have cell phones).  I’ve found a new service called Cel.ly that facilitates this kind of communication.

Cel.ly allows users to create channels, or “cells”,  to subscribe to, and settings can be tweaked to allow for group text messaging chat (moderated or unmoderated) or for one-way broadcast only (my choice).  One moderator can create several different cells, so you can send broadcasts to your entire team, the defensive line only, the junior varsity team only – whatever.  Cel.ly’s model is opt-in rather than opt-out, so students would need to text the cell name to the main number (23559) in order to subscribe, and they can unsubscribe at any time.

This service is similar to TextMarks, with one major difference: it is totally free (which means no ads, either).  I’ve been in touch with some of the folks at Cel.ly previously with support questions, and they have told me that they are specifically interested in providing this service to educators for their professional use and that they are open to suggestions on the service from educators.  If texting students en masse isn’t in your immediate future, I imagine this could also be a convenient way to connect with parent/community groups or colleagues, as well.

In the coming weeks, I’ll also be writing about free desktop software I use in the course of my job, as well as the web services for which I gladly fork over money every year.  If you have a favorite free Web-based service, please let us know about it in the comments!

In January, I challenged you to get out of your classroom and observe your colleagues at least once a month from January to May.  I even said I would try to do it twice a month.

I did not meet my goal.

In fact, I fell way short.  This is not to say I didn’t conduct general observations as part of my job; rather, I didn’t get to conduct many additional ones as outlined in that blog post from January.

Ordinarily, this is the part where I would analyze my own actions or inaction, and determine what I could do differently to improve this for next time.  I started off well enough, sitting in on a basic skills Algebra class, but if I’m honest, it came down to there not being enough hours in the day.  I pride myself on always being able to find or make time for these things, but in a rare occurence, I just wasn’t going to be able to do it without neglecting other, more time-sensitive or higher-priority items.

So maybe this is a Seinfeldesque blog post about nothing, but I thought it important to at least come correct and own up to my inability to meet the challenge I set for myself and others.  If nothing else, it’s what I would expect of my students.

I am very excited about this new opportunity for many reasons, not the least of which is the move from the secondary to intermediate level.  While I liked working in high schools over the last eleven years, working with younger students has been on my mind for a few years now, and I’m thrilled to be able to realize that goal this coming September.

I’m very much looking forward to a new set of professional challenges and rewards.  Between starting two new jobs (I’m also teaching my first graduate class this summer, in a teacher certification program) and a doctoral program, the next few months are going to be ones of great change and, as far as my growth and efficacy as an educator is concerned, great opportunities for learning and reflection.

Although the specific job description of the school psychologist in the US varies from state to state, the training looks similar, especially among NASP-approved programs: statistics & research, psychometrics, behavior analysis & support, counseling, consultation, learning disabilities, etc.  Such skills, I imagine (and Dr. Lange confirms) are marketable outside of a traditional K-12 school setting; Dr. Lange describes his experiences working in non-educational settings with both non-doctoral and doctoral degrees in school psychology.

But school psychologists get the training they do specifically because they want to work in schools.  So what on Earth could ever convince a school psychologist to leave the education sector?

Dr. Lange explains:

I am sure that school psychologists leave public education for myriad reasons, but the increasing emphasis in special education on litigation and procedural compliance provided the impetus for my exodus. I suspect that there must be others who have left for similar reasons. The threat of litigation and work expended to avoid court was a drain on time and resources, and an obstacle to collaboration in service of children’s educations. It can be mind numbing to produce endless letters of notification, often in legal boilerplate. It can be supremely stressful to cope with a practice model that seems to encourage conflict. (emphasis mine)

I think Lange nails it right here.  In trying to express and reflect upon the frustrations I often experience in my position, a great many of the issues I seem to have come down to this.  It’s less an issue of the local education agency (although problems can and do exist at the local level in any district) and more an issue of the framework in which we – students, parents, psychologists, teachers, administrators – are forced to operate.

Beyond the most obvious external conflicts, there are also internal conflicts, such as the ethical dilemmas that exist within this system.  As Lange explains,

On the one hand, like all psychologists, each must adhere to the imperative to respect individual rights, and to act with beneficence. On the other hand, schools are organized to follow a utilitarian imperative to do as much as possible for the greatest number of pupils, even if that means the needs or wants of one child or one parent are frustrated.

…

Beyond the educational and mental health implications for students, parents, and schools, the quality of work life for school psychologists rests largely on how these ethical dilemmas expose psychologists to interpersonal, professional, and legal conflicts. How many school psychologists exit public education for other professional arenas after contending with the “Who is the Client” issue? Are there only a few wanderers, or is there a diaspora? If so, how big is it?

I wish I had more concrete advice to give to “fix” the situation, but I’m afraid I’m at a loss here, at least for implementation within the current system.   Lange is right – the system encourages conflict, and no ‘band-aid’ approaches will change this.  It’s times like these that I think back to Illich’s “start from scratch” mentality and wonder if that’s the only solution – not to change the existing framework, but to create a new one.

I’m grateful to Dr. Lange for very clearly expressing the frustration I’ve felt, but not been able to articulate, and for anyone who might wish to write us off as whining or complaining, it’s awfully telling that Lange describes his exit from the school setting thusly:

…a few more beatings like that chased me out of schools and into the practice of psychology in a much more reasonable, rational type of setting—state prisons.

Love it.

Reference

Lange, S.M.  (2011, January/February).  Is there a school psychology diaspora?  Communiqué, 39(5), 20.

Disclaimer 2: As with all my product review posts, I have no formal connection to the manufacturer.  I have not received a request to write this post, nor have I received any compensation to do so from anyone.  My only connection to SanDisk is as a very satisfied customer and user of this product.

The Sansa Clip is a tiny digital music player that (as you might guess) includes a clip for attaching to belts, clothes, etc.  It’s similar in proportions to the 2nd-gen iPod shuffle, which means it’s comparable in size to a quarter (official measurements are 55 x 34.3 x 16.5mm, from here), and it is currently available in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB capacities.  I originally bought my Clip to listen to music and podcasts as I ran; however, after I became a school psychologist, I found uses for it on the job.

Hard to see, but there's a standard headphone jack on the side.

I compare the Clip to the iPod Shuffle, but to me, the Clip provides superior value for the money (I paid around $30 for my 1GB Clip a few years ago; NewEgg currently has refurbed models for $14.99).  Aside from the price (Clips cost nearly half the price of their same-capacity Apple counterparts), the magic ingredient here is the built-in digital audio recorder.  The Clip can save voice recordings as .wav files, which can then be dragged & dropped from the Clip to your computer once connected via mini-USB cable.

As anyone involved in special education knows, from time to time it becomes necessary to record IEP meetings.  Rather than struggle with your school’s “vintage” audio cassette recorder and having to stop and switch tapes every so often (which interrupts the flow of what is likely an already tense meeting), use a Clip (or similar digital audio recorder) to “set it and forget it” until the end of the meeting.  According to SanDisk’s site (linked above), even the 1GB model can hold several hours of voice recording.  I don’t know how long your meetings last, but that’s plenty for me!

The built-in microphone is surprisingly powerful.  I’ve set my Clip in the middle of a table in a decent-size conference room, and the clarity and quality of voices picked up from all over the room was excellent.

Finally, moving the finished audio file is as simple as attaching the Clip to your computer via the mini-USB cable, letting the computer identify it (Windows computers will recognize the Clip as a removable hard drive), and manually dragging it to its destination through your preferred file exploring program.  If it becomes necessary to share your audio files with other team members or colleagues, it’s as simple as emailing or copying it to a flash drive for them – there’s no fear of losing (or damaging!) the only cassette copy of an important recording.

Besides recording meetings, I’ve also used my Clip to record audio notes to myself (case notes, observations, etc.), which I later archive or transcribe.  I can’t stress enough what a factor the size of this thing is – it’s small enough that it fits in a shirt or pants pocket, so there’s no need to lug around an antiquated cassette player and a handful of tapes.  It’s just this little 2″x1″ chunk of plastic and circuitry that weighs a single ounce and records hours upon hours of audio.

So let’s review the benefits:

• Low cost
• High value
• High recording capacity
• Powerful microphone
• Small + light = easily transportable
• No tapes required
• Digital = share copies as necessary without fear of permanent loss
• Archive everything electronically

The last one is huge for me.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve got far more room on my hard drive than I do in my office, so I take every opportunity I have to digitally record or scan for my files.

I also know that a significant portion of my audience is comprised of classroom teachers.  Surely this has applications for students as well: note-taking, lecture recording, and basic recording for podcasting are all possible with the Clip.  Students can also listen to audiobooks on these devices – the Clip plays .mp3, .wav, & .wma audio files, as well as downloads from Audible.  Combine this with the library of free public domain audiobooks available for download at AudioOwl or Librivox and your students can access an entire semester’s worth of novels, plays, and short stories from their front pocket.

Regardless of whether you use this particular tool or not, please consider the advantages and disadvantages of digital audio recording.  I’ve found it to be an invaluable addition to my proverbial toolbox, and I’m interested to hear how you might (or do) use it (or, as always, why you won’t ever use it and think I shouldn’t either).