Online Clock for Executive Function Skills

I had the privilege recently of co-writing a column with Super-Executive-Function-Specialist Sarah Ward for the ASHA Leader. As many of you know, I have been a fan of her approaches for many years, and find her language-based and practical concepts for teaching kids how to be aware of situations, plan, monitor time, and develop self-awareness within these process to be useful for many populations we serve: the academically challenged "LLD" kids, students with social learning issues, and the straight-up "disorganized" kids. In the article, Sarah and I describe resources for getting regulated, planning, and time tracking, and link these to models Sarah and her colleague Kristen Jacobsen describe in several recent SIG Perspectives articles. You can view the article here.

One strategy Sarah and Kristen developed is the use of an analog clock as a tool to assist in self-monitoring and task execution. Generally a glass-faced, tickless (to reduce distraction) analog clock works best. As Sarah and Kristen describe it:

Using a dry erase marker on a clock with a glass face, students sketch the total “pie” or amount of time they estimate they would need to achieve the future picture. This enables students to see the volume of time available. On the clock, students also use the dry erase marker to create time markers: a starting time, an ending time, and midpoint check in (Ward and Jacobsen, 2014).

Using this approach with small groups, classrooms, and individuals alike can help the student to:

• Learn to make better guesses about time needed for tasks
• Monitor himself within that time period for distracted behaviors and pacing
• Reflect after a task on how he actually did, compared to his plan

One problem is that glass-faced, tickless analog clocks aren't as easy to find as one might think (and if you write on a plastic-faced clock with dry-erase marker, it doesn't completely come off. Sarah and Kristen's practice, Cognitive Connections, sells great clocks on their website, but I am always looking to have more around. Recently I was in a classroom where Online-stopwatch.com was being displayed on the interactive whiteboard to help kids monitor themselves within a time allotted for a task, and I realized that the website features an analog clock! This is a great tool if you are using an interactive whiteboard that has software associated (e.g. Smart Notebook) to allow you to "draw" on the clock. However, it can also be used in the same way described above with a laptop and the Google Chrome browser (sorry, I don't have an iPad solution for this yet, besides the resources described in the ASHA Leader, and Online-Stopwatch.com is based in Flash, so it does not work on an iPad). For me, at times the analog clocks we have in our practice are being used, but I always have my laptop with me!

So here's how you do it:

1. Using the Google Chrome browser, navigate to the Chrome Web Store and search for the free extension Page Marker. This allows you to draw on any webpage.
2. Navigate to the Online Clock and click on the link to view it full screen (this eliminates some of the ads).
3. I found it helpful to add the link to the full-screen analog clock to my Bookmarks Bar so it will always be available.
4. Once you have added the Page Marker extension it will appear as a small red "marker" button in the upper right of your Chrome window. Click on it and you will be able to draw on your clock, like so:

Page Marker does allow you to change colors, but not use different colors within the same annotation. But it's a start. Enjoy your long holiday weekend!

Ward, S, & Jacobsen, K. (2014). A clinical model for developing executive function skills. SIG 1 Perspectives on Language Learning and Education, 21, 72-84.