Special Education Today Newsletter (1, 48)
The week’s news and info for 16 May 2022
Dear colleagues,
Here you have (aqui tenemous) the the first issue of Special Education Today written (well, at least started) by e-candlelight. Pat and I lost power when a storm passed over us late Sunday afternoon. The power company told Pat that we’d get power back between 11 PM EST (15 May) and 4 AM (16 May), so I figured that I would need to improvise to be able to publish this week’s newsletter in tme for Monday’s deadline.
So, here I am writing these words (and those that follow) using my iPad, which is tethered to my iPhone so that I have an internet connection. I’ve also got a portable USB light. (My devices, including the light, are all running off portable batteries while the uninterruptible battery for my desktop computer is beeping four times every 35 sec.)
Thank goodness for having batteries (that are charged!) and cables to make connections.
Wait! Woohoo! We have power again! As I was typing, the UPS stopped beeping and I heard the start-up chime for “The Big Girl” (our desktop computer). So, I’ll switch back to The Big Girl. She’s aging, but she’s strong: She’s got huge screens, lots of storage, a powerful lot of RAM. I’ll continue work on this newsletter.
Yep, that’s what SET central looks like!
If you found this message in your inbox somewhat unexpectedly, perhaps because someone forwarded it to you, please click the button at the end of this paragraph to start your own free e-mail subscription. Better, yet, become a paying subscriber! More about that option later.
If you no longer want to get the newsletters—and, I do hope you still want to receive them—you will find an “unsubscribe” link at the end of this issue. If you are already a paid subscriber, unsubscribing will generate a refund for the unused part of your subscription.
But, if you are not a subscriber, please do subcribe.
In this, the 48th issue of the first volume-year of SET, regular readers will see familiar content. As usual, this newsletter provides a brief status report for the community and the newsletter, acknowledges readers who interact with the content, refers to articles recently published on the site, and contains some commentary at the end. The organization should sound familiar to regular readers, but look for special paragraphs explaining paid vs. free subscriptions near the end.
Status update
Thanks to you, dear readers, our community continues to grow. Yay!
I sometimes drop a Tweet on Twitter (@specialedtoday) but growth is the result of “word-of-mouth” (text-of-device?) efforts to let others know about SET. That comes from y’all chatting about SET with colleagues and others interested in special education. Thank you for supporting the effort to build a community of people who think carefully about special education and how to improve it. I should note that this community is international; subscribers come for CA, OZ, the EU, the Arab region, and TW...and, of course, from the US.
We lost one subscriber this past week. We picked up a few. We are approaching a community of 500. Thanks to all you new subscribers (paid or free!) who let me know how they learned about SET and what they’re doing for kids with disabilities.
Recommend SET! Parents, please tell your friends. Professionals, please share with parents, colleagues, and students for whom you think the posts might be of interest. Advocates, please refer to SET articles in your publications. I’ll write the content and hope that that content is attractive enough that folks decide to subscribe! But please let others know about the content
Flashes of the electrons
The list of folks who interacted with SET recently is rich. Lost of the folks in the following list are actually pretty famous speducators; I’ve use the first-name-given-name-initial convention so that there’s a little anonimity, but readers may be able to determine who’s commenting.
There are peeps I don’t know particularly well (internet relations alone) and others whom I know personally...but they all are engaging with the content. So, shoutouts to
• Anita A.
• Carrie Anna C.
• Clayton K. (US, i.e., “usual suspect”)
• Jane B. (US)
• Jesse F.
• Laura McK.
• Lee S.
• Michael K. (US)
• Tina C. (US)
Thanks to all y’all. Thanks, too, to the little birds on Twitter who tweet or retweet messages on that platform. And, a doff of the cap to those who alert other users of Facebook (and other social media) to SET content.
And This Week’s ToC
So, here’s a catalog of the posts for the previous week. Please note that in my transition to a hybrid system of free and paying subscriptions, only paying subscribers will be able to read each and every one of these posts. More on that in the commentary.
Commentary
The growing international readership reminds me that I encourage subscribers to send me news and events from their areas of Earth. I know that friends in Portugal, Australia, Taiwan, and other parts of the community are reading SET...and I appreciate their efforts to share the work.
Problems, issues, and concerns about disability and special education transcend borders; they are issues of human consideration. So, please let me know what’s happening where you are. I may not be able to represent all of them on the site, but I suspect that there are plenty that reflect big-picture ideas others in the community would be glad to know.
About paid subscriptions
Now, I know some readers have questions about me creating a paywall on SET. Well, here’s the story: I am in what I think is called the “soft-launch phase” of establishing the business side of SET. As of 1 June 2022, though, there will be differences in what paid and free subscribers can access. (More detail in a couple of paragraphs.) I’m testing some of them now.
Creating and maintaining SET requires a good bit of work. I’d like to turn it into a sustainable community of people who give a damn about disability and special education. I’ve generated this first year of SET using my own time and effort. It’s been fun (thank you!).
But, if SET is to become an international community of advocates and practitioners concerned with special education and disability, it will need way more than something that I can provide myself. So, I’m seeking financing of this venture.
Therefore, I have created a means for subscribers to pay for access. I hope to secure enough paying subscribers that SET will become a source that provides trustworthy content about special education and disability. In the future, I hope to commission posts by well-informed writers about disabilities (reading, autism, etc.), create an editorial team. I hope to create a self-sustaining product that will last well after my own decline and demise.
I do not want to create a pay-only solution; doing so would reduce access to people concerned about disabilities and special education who live in less-affluent parts of our planet from having access to SET’s content. I want to create a way where those of us who have privilege can chip in a little $$ to help keep SET afloat and accessible to the world.
Subscription plan
Here’s the way I see subscriptions working (as of June 2022). I hope suscribers will pay for a subscription because they want to suppor the mission of SET.
My top level goal is to spread content that people (parents, teachers, administrators, psychologists, and others) can trust. I hope readers are willing to “buy into” this effort by creating a paying subscription, which, right now, is available at the “early-bird discount!”
Meanwhile, please remember to take appropriate actions to thwart the spread of COVID, to protect yourselves (and your loved ones) when traveling, and to employ effective teaching practices. That is, stay safe, wear your seatbelts, and …
…teach your children well!
JohnL
SET Editor guy
Charlottesville
SET should not be confused with a product with the same name that is published by the Council for Exceptional Children. SET predated CEC’s publication by decades. Nor should it be confused with a blog maintained by a law firm known as KCS, LLP. Despite my appreciation for CEC and admiration for advocacy companies, this product is not designed to promote either organization.