Apace of Change

by Damian Bariexca, Ed.D.

Archive for the ‘School Psychology’ Category

Tools of the Trade: Sansa Clip

Disclaimer 1: This post discusses professional applications of audio recording.  Before implementing any of these, please refer to your state’s laws re: recording other parties.

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). 🙂

Doubt

I’ve had this nagging feeling again.  Most educators get it every so often; at least, I imagine, the good ones do:

Am I making a difference?  Is there anything more I can be doing?

When I left teaching to go into school psychology I (perhaps naively) thought that it would put me in a position to do a greater amount of good for a greater number of students than working as a teacher.  Now, almost two years later, it seems to me that my scope of influence has actually diminished from my classroom days.

So what’s a natural-born do-gooder to do?  I try to compensate in a few ways.  I co-advise my high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, not only because I think it’s a righteous cause, but also to increase the face-to-face time I spend with young folks.  I also volunteer to conduct professional development sessions at work and help teachers get comfortable using tools like wikis and podcasts to develop more student-centered, authentic projects.  Of course, there’s also the consultative role I play as part of my job, which I guess (I hope) is beneficial, too.

Reading up on education reform and going to conferences like EduCon and Constructing Modern Knowledge (if I can get away for three days!), although not directly related to my responsibilities as a school psychologist, are important to me because they prevent me from becoming too isolated in my practice and, more importantly, keep me engaged as a visible stakeholder and participant in the discussions I think we need to be having about education right now (many of which, I’m finding out through my reading, have been going on for decades, to little avail).

At EduCon two weeks ago, as much as I enjoyed it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was the only one (psychologist) in the room at any given time.  As many of the conversations at EduCon focused around what teachers can do differently and how teachers can improve their practice, I continually wondered, “What can I do differently?  How can I contribute to some of these changes given the limited interactions I have with students?”  The teachers and administrators and techie folks all had at least a few kindred professional spirits to bounce ideas off of; I was not so lucky (this is probably fodder for another post).

I asked in a blog post almost two years ago what, if any, place psychologists have in the School 2.0/Unschool framework.  Let me expand that somewhat narrow question to YOUR vision of what school could/should be, free of movements or labels.

Maybe a better question for you progressive educators out there is this: what could I, given my skill set, do to support your efforts if I worked in your building?  Sky’s the limit; just put it out there.

Why I Failed

Just after Thanksgiving, I announced my intentions to start the P90X workout program.  From a behavior management/support standpoint, this was probably a good idea.  So was starting my own microblog dedicated to tracking my feelings & progress on the program (see some of the links in that blog post for the reasons why).

So why have I stopped the program just over a third of the way through?

It’s not that journaling was ineffective; in fact, I don’t know if I would have lasted as long were it not for the added guilt incentive my blog gave me to keep going – after all, I couldn’t punk out after having stated my intentions so boldly, could I?  I think I put my finger on the issue in my 27 December post:

Update: I took my “recovery week” as a real rest week – took about 4-6 days off completely. I did more days than I’ve blogged about here, but I’m finding I’m burning out – I’m a fit guy, and have run and lifted for years, but I’m having a real hard time finding 60-90 minutes a day where I can follow the program without other stuff interfering. I’m going to pick it up again today in Week 5 of the program and see where it takes me.

The problem was not with the supports; it was with the ultimate goal.  In the back of my mind, I knew that this was going to be time-consuming, but it wasn’t until I got into it that I realized I was effectively having to choose between exercise and my family (long story, not interesting, just trust me).  I have since switched to a different workout routine that is still challenging, but more compatible with my schedule.

So why whine about my workout on an education blog?  Simple: it was a stark reminder to me to keep goals attainable, behavioral, academic, or otherwise.  In hindsight, even though I was able to keep up physically with the workouts, the specifics of my work and family’s schedules made this an unrealistic undertaking for me.  I kind of knew this in the back of my head, and had a Plan B to go to just in case, but that’s not always the case, especially with our students who are attempting to meet goals that we set for them, either via behavioral expectations, grades, or IEPs.

The same may be true of your students.  If Johnny (why are these hypothetical example students always named Johnny?) picks his nose for 80% of the class period, it may be unrealistic to expect to extinguish that behavior right away.  If, after, say, two weeks of behavior interventions, he’s picking his nose during 40% of the class, that’s not bad at all – you’ve cut the frequency of nasal spelunking in your classroom in half.  Of course, you’ll eventually want to kill that off entirely, but in a case like this, it’s important to a) recognize his progress, and b) understand that behavior is complex, and can take time to change.  The same is true of improving study skills, academic performance, reading fluency… some improvements come quickly, but others take time, and don’t always come as easily as we’d like.

As educators, we often like to set the bar high and challenge our students, and that’s admirable.  We just have to remember that setting the bar too high too soon can sometimes do more harm than good – set up some smaller bars first, for them and for yourself.  The confidence boost they (and you) get from meeting those short-term goals (“Hey, I can do this after all!”) could be just what they need to get them to that ultimate goal.

Sharing is Caring

Back in April I mentioned that I started a feed of my Shared Items in Google Reader for anyone who’s interested in reading the same stuff I am on psychology, special education, technology, etc.  Today I’d like to let you all know that after multiple failed attempts, I think I’ve finally found a use for social bookmarking site Delicious that suits me: I’ve taken all the sites I’ve bookmarked for myself pertaining to special ed, assistive technology, and school psychology and uploaded them to my own Delicious account.

Please feel free to either subscribe to my Delicious RSS feed or just bookmark my page; have a look at the tag list on the right-hand side of the screen for categories that may interest you (e.g., Organization, Reading, Math, ADHD, etc.).  I hope you and your colleagues can find something useful there, for yourselves or your students.

Hello? Is This Thing On?

I’m not normally in the habit of recycling previous posts (especially those barely a month old), but I really need some feedback on this from teachers, CST specialists, parents, administrators, students, consultants – really, any stakeholder in the world of special education.  Here’s what I wrote last month:

So every member of my new Child Study Team has some ‘pet project’ that they contribute to the department, and along those lines, I’ve been approached to put together a website for the department (not sure if it’s just for CST or Special Services in general; will get more details in the summer).

[…]

Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments here – parents, what info can we make readily available to you?  Special ed teachers/service providers, what “frequently asked questions” or topics would you put on a site for the community?

Although this project is still in the very early stages, I have some thoughts as to what I think needs to go on this site at minimum:

  • “plain English” description of the NJ special ed determination process
  • downloadable PDFs of NJAC 6:14 (special education code), PRISE (Parental Rights in Special Education), and similar documents
  • little blurbs about each of the CST members (4 psychologists, 2 LDTCs, 1 social worker) and our supervisor, along with contact information (phone, email, fax)
  • information on transition services and options
  • links to useful external sources

I’m not quite at the point of creating a Twitter account for our Child Study Team, but I would like to do something a little more personalized than a static website, like maybe have a monthly blog post from a different CST member (a la a newsletter).  I did create a wiki for the Special Services dept. at my last school as part of my grad school internship project, so I do have a basic blueprint, but given the additional year and a half or so of technical experience I’ve gained since putting that up (plus the fact that I’ll be using locally hosted WordPress as my canvas), I think I can kick this site up a notch.

So what do YOU think needs to feature on this website?  Sky’s the limit, at least as we kick ideas around in this space.