About
Clairvoy.com is a blog (this blog) dedicated to providing useful tips for teachers to be more effective at teaching, and productivity tools for doing (easier/faster/cheaper) everything in our jobs that isn’t teaching.
The Clairvoy Community (http://tat.clairvoy.com) is a content management system with blogs, articles, discussion groups and other items which help teachers learn from one another. Started four years ago, The Clairvoy Community regularly receives thousands of unique visitors from all around the world–teachers sharing strategy–seeking to learn and perfect their craft from one another.
The Education Study Group (http://EducationStudyGroup.com) is a group which supports teacher research and action research into educational issues and techniques. It is funded, in part, by MetLife.
Commenting is turned on for some posts for 5 days and then expires. I can’t keep up with folks finding an old post and commenting on it. Better than commenting here, write a response in your own blog and link back to Clairvoy.
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If you want to contact me to get permission to use materials from this blog in your own website, don’t bother. Just write your own thoughts about it and link to the materials here in Clairvoy with attribution. You know, like in the olden days.
Contact: You can contact me here.
Revealing One’s Identity and Internet Security: I teach others not to reveal their identities online for security reasons. I still believe that should be the case for students. However it has become difficult to run a community which includes the Traditional Clairvoy site which still has many users constantly, the new Education Study Group site for teacher research and this blog from behind a nom de plume. So with the remake of Clairvoy I’m coming out. Here goes…
Mark Smith is a licensed special educator in Virginia and the Information Technology Resource Teacher at a Title One elementary school outside Washington, D.C.
Mark has 25 years of experience in media production and story telling, working for network news and newspaper companies.
He was producer, writer and foreign editor for NBC and CNN. Mark was director of international television at Associated Press where he designed and helped launch their television operations.
He ran his own new media company for 10 years pioneering broadband Internet ATM infrastructure as well as streaming media content and business models in the 1990s.
His focus has been on content as well as technology.
Mark is a lecturer at George Mason University’s Graduate School of Special Education focusing on the use of Internet collaborative technologies as (and in conjunction with) assistive technologies. As a teacher and university lecturer his primary interest is on using media to reach non-verbal students.
He is a a MetLife Research Fellow and is Research Director of the Education Study Group, a company with more than 50 active research projects engaging Research Associates in independent ongoing research in all fields of education.
Mark presented previous research, in part, at the National Education Computer Conference in 2009 with MetLife Fellows Jennifer Orr and Jennifer Metcalfe.
Mark co-directs (with MetLife Fellow, Kim Dupont) the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI) Affiliate for the Washington, D.C. Metro Area.
Upcoming Speaking Engagements:
Accessibility Summit, April 23-24, Washington, D.C.
International Society for Technology in Education, June 27-30, Denver, CO.
Current Research Includes:
Research Title: Impact and best practices on use of iPod Touch with assistive technology to help student with Autism/PDD and accompanying speech delay. Research Project Site: http://itouchandautism.edustudygroup.com Research Year: 2009-2010 Research Classification: Student Support/Enrichment Research Summary: The marketplace of “apps” for iPhone and iPod Touch technology is growing. It is also growing in the field of assitive technology. iPhone technology provides computing and storage power in an unrivaled small space which is a clear advantage over older model assistive communication devices such as Dynavox. This research will obtain the technology for a single student and their teacher and look at best practices and impact on student behavior and learning.
Previous Research Includes:
Research Title: Multiple Intelligences & The Collaborative Web Research Year: 2009 Research Classification: Student Support/Enrichment Research Summary: This project developed a rubric for use of collaborative technologies in support of implementing instruction based on Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory.
Research Title: The Clairvoy Community: Online Collaboration; Building a School-wide PLC Culture of Transforming Practice from Within Research Year: 2008 Research Classification: Curriculum Development,Professional Development Research Summary: An online collaborative environment, The Clairvoy Community, was introduced to the staff. The behavior of the staff was studied. The research concluded 80% of the staff use the tools on a regular basis for professional development using the PLC model. Research also concluded use of Clairvoy.com overcame many of the barriers challenging implementation of traditional PLC models in schools.
Research Title: Use of Exploratory Teaching Method for Punctuation Unit in 2nd Grade Research Year: 2007 Research Classification: Curriculum Development Research Summary: An ex-post facto, single group pretest-posttest research design was used to study if a convenience sampling of 22 students in a 3rd grade class of a Title One school (majority English as a Second Language learners) earned higher scores on their use of upper case punctuation after an intervention on writing punctuation using an inquiry-based teaching strategy. The intervention consisted of a two week unit of study. A pretest and posttest were administered on the first and last day of the intervention. Findings suggest the students scored higher in their usage of upper case letters after the intervention. Study limitations and suggestions for further investigation are discussed.
Research Title: Implementing Daily Curriculum-Based Assessment to Inform Instruction Research Year: 2006 Research Classification: Curriculum Development Research Summary: Students who do not have mastery of prerequisite knowledge are less able to access the curriculum. Especially in cumulative subjects such as Math and Phonemic Awareness, students who do not master each lesson are less able to access the curriculum of subsequent lessons, because they lack the prerequisite knowledge. Holding the entire class hostage to remediate a sub-group delays learning, frustrates some students, and interferes with the program of study. Using our Flexible Review Group strategy coupled with the use of Visual Entry Tickets allows general education (and some special education) students to be taught the curriculum to mastery over the course of every two lessons. These strategies, when implemented within the body of a LEARN model lesson plan, can be implemented without adding additional time to the lesson. Definitions: Visual Entry Ticket [curriculum-based assessment done at the beginning of a lesson to determine mastery of prerequisite knowledge] Flexible Review Groups [group of students needing remediation on prerequisite knowledge defined at the beginning of each lesson using Visual Entry Ticket curriculum-based assessment tool] Results: The test group receiving the intervention strategy scored 42.5% higher than the first control group and 68.2% higher than a second control group.
