Links to Blogging School Psychologists

• IQ's Corner: Kevin McGrew's blog
• Assessment and Intervention in School Psychology Blog
• SchoolPsych Blog
• Dr. Weisz: School Psychology Blog & Podcasts
• Diary of a School Psychologist
• Brain S. Friedlander: Assistive Technology Blog
• The Black Briefcase (School Psychologist's blog)
• Notes from the School Psychologist
• School Psychologist Blog Files
• New School Psych Blog
• Cool School Psychologist
• Psychmommy blog
• NASP Blogs   (Members Only)
  

Black Briefcase, a school psychologist's blog..."I didn't know there were people in the building (school) who didn't know how to turn on the computer"

The Black Briefcase blog is written by a school psychologist who writes about "true tales from a School Psychologist. An ongoing monologue about the state of education and what's really happening inside our schools."

I especially liked this post:

Land of the Luddites

"Maybe Luddite is too strong of a word. Technologically naive seems more appropriate. I've been on a crusade to get people in my school to embrace basic technology: email, web-based programs, word processing programs, i.e., nothing fancy. As I've been trying to educate others I've noticed the different levels of technology naivete that people have in my building. My district, like many others in the nation, has moved towards using a web-based program for writing IEPs. The problem has been that only two people out of 6 are comfortable enough with the program to complete an IEP. Everyone else has expressed their trepidation towards using the computer. One of the drawbacks is that the entry fields do not appear as they do within an IEP so that those who are used to completing them by hand do not know what they are looking at on the computer...." -Black Briefcase

This sounds a lot like the EasyIEP program that was adopted by my school district this year! It doesn't map to the real world, and for teachers who aren't used to doing more than sending e-mail, the application can be quite daunting.


Black Briefcase goes on to provide a couple of examples that shed light on why technology is lagging in many many classrooms:

"The last week, I've experienced two different eye-opening moments on the vast technological divide that exists in my school. Those on the inexperienced end amaze me. I was asked by a co-worker how to attach a file to an email. I thought that was the lowest, but that was beaten the next day. I was sitting in my office when I got an internal call from another room. A teacher was on the other line and she asked me if I had turned off the computer when I used it in the lab. I used the lab when I taught my coworkers how to use the web-based program last week. I guess I turn off the computer out of habit; I was finished using it so it seemed like the thing to do. I didn't know that there were people in the building that didn't know how to turn on the computer. So I figured it must have been something complex. I went to the lab to see what was wrong. The LCD projector was working so that was one less problem to deal with, but the screen was black. I thought that maybe something was unplugged and when I looked at the computer, I realized that it wasn't on. I pressed the button on the CPU and the computer sprang to life. It couldn't have been that easy, I figured that I would have to do something more than that. Well it appeared that the teacher was pressing the wrong button. Instead of the on/off switch she was pressing the button that opens the CPU. If you're familiar with old Dell computers then you know what I'm talking about. She was pressing the wrong button and couldn't understand why it wouldn't turn on. That was a new one for me. I thought I had seen it all until that moment." -Black Briefcase

One of Black Briefcase's solutions to address the "luddite" phenomenon is to share tech tips from David Pogue's New York Times blog post. That is a great idea!

eSchool News: Response to Intervention (RTI) and related resources and links

If you haven't heard of eSchool News, take a look!

I subscribe to eSchool news and have found it very useful. The resource section includes information about topics such as Response to Intervention for reading and math, student data and information systems, and more.

School Psychology and Special Education Researchers: Educational Data Mining Conference

In keeping with my recent theme about data, I thought I'd post a copy of a call for papers for an interdisciplinary conference on topic of educational data mining, which will be held in UQÀM - Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada, immediately following the International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems.

University researchers fields such as school psychology, education, special education, and related disciplines might have some important insights to share at this conference. Practitioners and graduate interns might also have something important to contribute to this new are of study. The topics that I think are most relevant to RTI and broader K-12 school improvement efforts are highlighted below in green.

Call For Papers

The First International Conference on Educational Data Mining brings together researchers from computer science, education, psychology, psychometrics, and statistics to analyze large data sets to answer educational research questions. The increase in instrumented educational software, as well as state databases of student test scores, has created large repositories of data reflecting how students learn. The EDM conference focuses on computational approaches for using those data to address important educational questions. The broad collection of research disciplines ensures cross fertilization of ideas, with the central questions of educational research serving as a unifying focus. This Conference emerges from preceding EDM workshops at the AAAI, AIED, EC-TEL, ICALT, ITS, and UM conferences.

Topics Of Interest

We welcome papers describing original work. Areas of interest include but are not limited to:

Improving educational software. Many large educational data sets are generated by computer software. Can we use our discoveries to improve the software’s effectiveness?

Domain representation. How do learners represent the domain? Does this representation shift as a result of instruction? Do different subpopulations represent the domain differently?

Evaluating teaching interventions. Student learning data provides a powerful mechanism for determining which teaching actions are successful. How can we best use such data?

Emotion, affect, and choice. The student’s level of interest and willingness to be a partner in the educational process is critical. Can we detect when students are bored and uninterested? What other affective states or student choices should we track?

Integrating data mining and pedagogical theory. Data mining typically involves searching a large space of models. Can we use existing educational and psychological knowledge to better focus our search?
Improving teacher support. What types of assessment information would help teachers? What types of instructional suggestions are both feasible to generate and would be welcomed by teachers?

Replication studies. We are especially interested in papers that apply a previously used technique to a new domain, or that reanalyze an existing data set with a new technique.

Important Dates

Paper submission: March 31, 2008
Acceptance notification: April 30, 2008
Camera ready paper: May 16, 2008
Conference: June 20-21, 2008

Submission Types

All submissions should follow the formatting guidelins (MS Word, PDF). There are two types of submission:
Full papers: Maximum of 10 pages. Should describe substantial, unpublished work
Young researcher: Maximum of 8 pages. Designed for graduate students and undergraduates

Conference Organization

Conference Chair: Tiffany Barnes, University of North Carolina Charlotte, USA
Program Chairs: Ryan S. J. de Baker, Carnegie Mellon University, USA; Joseph E. Beck, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA
Local Arrangements Chair: Michel Desmáris, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada
Web Chair: Arnon Hershkovitz, Tel Aviv University, Israel

(Click here for a PDF version)

About Literacy: Children of the Code Website, links

I came across this website today and thought I'd share it- if you are familiar with Children of the Code project, please leave a comment, since I haven't yet explored the entire site.

Childrenof thecode.org is an on-line multi-media resource that is part of a public/social education project to that aims to spread information and education about "The Code and the Challenge of Learning to Read it"

The project has four main components:

1. A three hour Public Television, DVD and Web documentary series;
2. A ten-hour college, university, and professional development DVD series;
3. A series of teacher and parent presentations and seminars;
4. A cross-indexed website/database containing audio, video and transcripts with the world's leading experts in fields related to reading.

The website includes over 100 interviews of people from a wide range of disciplines who are committed to promotion of health, education, and well-being of children, youth, and in turn, communities and society.

Here is the project's abstract:

"Abstract: Our children's cognitive and emotional development, self-esteem, academic, and later social and economic success, all depend on how well they learn - on the health of their learning. Whether we are involved in parenting, teaching, cognitive science, psychology, pedagogy, curriculum design, instructional design, direct instruction, constructivism, assessment, multiple intelligences, learning styles, learning differences, learning disabilities, learning theory, learning communities, organizational learning, preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, home school, unschooling, college, university... we all share the responsibility of stewarding the health of our children's learning."


I'd recommend starting with the on-line video tour of the project:
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/Tour/index.htm

The following is a quote from an interview with David Boulton, the director of the Children of the Code project:

"The mission of the Children of the Code project is to catalyze and resource a transformation in how our society thinks about the "code" of our written language and the "challenges involved in learning to read it.". I think we're living in the "Stone Age of Literacy." Our lack of understanding of what is involved and what is at stake in acquiring literacy is wreaking havoc on the lives of our population, including children"

"..the first think I hope i that it (the project) changes the mental lens through which parents and teachers see struggling learners. I want them to see someone who is struggling as somebody who is struggling with an artificially confusing technology (written language) and somebody who is in significant emotional and cognitive danger.

"What I hope is that people realize that if children and adults struggle too long with the process of acquiring literacy, it can seriously affect how they develop and grow and learn. Struggling to read causes many, many people to grow up feeling ashamed of their mind.."

Here is a list of direct links to many of the interviews you'll find on the site:

Grover (Russ) Whitehurst
Director, Institute of Education Science, U.S. Department of Education
Mel Levine Author: A Mind at a Time, The Myth of Laziness & Ready or Not Here Life Comes
Jack Shonkoff
Chair, The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child

James J. Heckman
Nobel Prize Winner in Economic Sciences, Lead Author: The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children
Sally Shaywitz
Neuroscientist, Department of Pediatrics, Yale University, Author: Overcoming Dyslexia
Maryanne Wolf
Director, Center for Reading & Language Research; Professor of Child Development, Tufts University
Nancy Hennessy
President, 2003-2005, International Dyslexia Association
Tim Shanahan
Chair, National Literacy Panel, Member of National Reading Panel (NRP)
Louisa Moats
Reading Scientist, Sopris West - Author: Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling
Reid Lyon
Ex-Branch Chief, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Marilyn Jager Adams
Senior Scientist, Soliloquy Learning, Author: Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print
Edward Kame'enui
Commissioner for Special Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences Director
Keith Stanovich
Chair, Applied Cognitive Science, U. Toronto, Author: Reading Matters: How Reading Engagement Influences Cognition
Todd Risley
Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Alaska, Co-author: Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children
James Wendorf
Executive Director, National Center for Learning Disabilities
Paula Tallal
Board of Governor's Professor of Neuroscience Rutgers University,, Co-Founder, Scientific Learning Corporation
Keith Rayner
Distinguished Professor, University of Massachusetts, Author: Eye Movements in Reading and Information Processing
Rick Lavoie
Learning Disabilities Specialist, Creator: How Difficult Can This Be?: The F.A.T. City Workshop & Last One Picked, First One Picked On: The Social Implications of Learning Disabilities
Richard Allington
Reading Researcher, President, International Reading Association
Richard Venezky
Professor of Educational Studies, Information Sciences & Linguistics, U. Delaware - Author: The Structure of English Orthography & The American Way of Spelling
Sharon Darling
President, National Center for Family Literacy
Kimberly Thompson
Director, Kids Risk Project, Department of Health Policy and Management - Harvard School of Public Health
Robert Sweet
Professional Staff, U.S. House of Representatives - Co-Founder, National Right to Read Foundation
Pat Lindamood & Nanci Bell
Founders of Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes
Carol H. Rasco
President, Reading is Fundamental
Chris Doherty
Ex-Director Reading First, U.S. Department of Education
Sandra Feldman
Past-President, American Federation of Teachers
Robert Wedgeworth
President, ProLiteracy
Lesley M. Morrow
Past-President, International Reading Association
George Farkus
Professor of Sociology, Demography, & Education, Penn State
Susan H. Landry
Director, Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education; Chief, Division of Developmental Pediatrics, University of Texas at Houston
Sarah Greene
Executive Director, National Head Start Association
Peter E. Leone
Director, National Center on Education, Disability & Juvenile Justice
Slyvia O. Richardson
Past President, International Dyslexia Association
Jones Kyazze
Director, UNESCO
Martin Haberman
Distinguished Professor, Depart. of Curriculum & Instruction, UWM - Creator, National Teacher Corp
Donald Nathanson
Professor of Psychiatry & Human Emotion, Jefferson Medical Center, Author: Shame and Pride
Terrence Deacon
Cognitive Anthropologist, Berkeley, Author: The Symbolic Species, The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain
Siegfried Engelmann
Professor of Instructional Research, University of Oregon, Creator of Direct Instruction
Richard Olson
President (2001-2003), Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Professor, Department of Psychology , University of Colorado
Anne Cunningham
Director, Joint Doctoral Program in Special Education, Berkeley
Steve Reder
Chair, Department of Applied Linguistics, Portland State University
Mike Merzenich
Chair of Otolaryngology, Integrative Neurosciences, UCSF, Member National Academy of Sciences
Patrick Groff
Professor Emeritus, San Diego State University, NRRF Board Member & Senior Advisor
Stephen Krashen
Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Southern California
Johanna Drucker
Chair of Media Studies, University of Virginia, Author: The Alphabetic Labyrinth
Thomas Cable
Professor of English, Co-Author: A History of the English Language
John H. Fisher
Medieval Language Historian, Author: The Emergence of Standard English
Naomi Baron
Linguist, Director TESOL, American University, Author: From Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading
David Abram
Ecologist and Philosopher, Author: The Spell of the Sensuous
Ray Kurzweil
1999 National Medal of Technology, Inventor of OCR & Speech Recognition
Robert Logan
Professor of Physics, University of Toronto, Author: The Alphabet Effect
Malcolm Richardson
Chair, Department of English, Louisiana State University - Researching: The Textual Awakening of the English Middle Classes, 1380-1520
Bruce Thornton
Greek Historian, Fresno State University, Author: How the Greeks Invented Western Civilization
Frank Moore Cross, Jr.
Professor Emeritus of Hebrew & Other Oriental Languages, Harvard
Leonard Shlain
Historian, Author: The Alphabet vs. the Goddess
Doug Engelbart
2000 National Medal of Technology, Computer & Internet Pioneer, Inventor of the 'Mouse'
...and many others...
(see interview list)