I'm Jake, a school psychologist who has just started his second year in the field. I've done a lot of learning throughout grad school and from my first year on the job. I'm looking forward to learning even more, and hope that this blog will be a useful tool for continuing to learn and helping others learn with me.
I may not be as much of an expert on school psychology topics as some of my colleagues who have had 15 years in the field, but I'm pretty good with technology if I do say so myself. I describe myself as a "reformed disorganized person" who has found technology to be a great enhancer of (and sometimes replacement for) executive functioning skills. I hope to share my knowledge of effective technology techniques, as well as pick up some new tips and tricks from others who might be interested in the same topics.
Since this is my first post, I thought I'd take a minute to talk about what this blog is for:
- Tools - I'm pretty much always on the lookout for good tech tools for school psychologists as well as educators in general. When I find something good that already exists, I'll be sure to share a link here. When there isn't a tool that does exactly what I want, I have been known to create my own... and I'm of course happy to share those creations with everyone too.
- Reviews - The school psych profession and education in general experience changes in the technological landscape very quickly, especially in recent years. I'm an early adopter of a lot of these technologies and will use this space to share my experiences working with them. My reviews will focus on the "user experience and ease-of-use" side of things (and less on the "opinions on theory diving development" side... I'll try to let my colleagues in academia handle that stuff).
- Commentary - I'm hoping that as the blog progresses, people might be interested in using the comments sections to go back and forth about issues related to the posts. I'm happy to share opinions in comments and hope to be challenged to think about things in different ways by dialogue (as long as dialogue is respectful and on topic).
As far as my intended audience goes, I imagine that fellow school psychologists will get the most out of the site. I hope that it is also useful to school counselors, instructional coaches, teachers, and even students. To help everyone find what they need, I'll tag each article for groups of people who might have an interest in it. Searching by tag will help keep teachers from having to read a bunch of updates about things that only other school psychs will find of any use. I'm looking forward to the journey, and excited to have you along for it!
