Technology & my School Counseling Practice

As i set out to draft this post to be featured on SCOPE, knowing that I would need to address how technology has shaped my school counseling practice, I took a walk through the town of Makanda, IL and a walk down memory lane. 

In my previous career as a Litigation Paralegal, the attorney I worked for would alway say I was her right arm. Today, as a school counselor, I feel like technology is my right arm.

I need technology like the crops need rain. I mean think about it, if we could not connect with other professional school counselors through the many technological advances we now enjoy, we would grow professionally, but at a much slower rate.

As a rural school counselor with a ratio of 1:350 I use technology daily.

• I maintain a department website
• All of my students are required to create & maintain online student academic/career planning portfolios
• I use Prezi & Powerpoint (I actually combined Prezi & Vocaroo this year to maximize my program's Delivery System, read about it here.)
• I use SignUp Genius instead of paper & pencil sign up forms
• I use GoogleDocs & GoogleForms to collaborate with others, and to collect & share data about my program etc. I created & shared a form I created with my blog readers in this previous post.
• I use Dropbox instead of a jumpdrive
• I use LiveBinders to organize my ideas & constantly dream big
• I use Remind101 & Twitter to communicate with students & parents
• I use Twitter to grow professionally--check out #SCCHAT for monthly professional development opportunities
• I use SMORE to publicize anything & everything about my program
• I use PollEverywhere to interact with my audience
• I use GoogleHangouts to connect with other Counselors in my extended PLN with ease

Remove the walls through
technology integration.
(Makanda, IL)

Technology has removed the walls & roads from my school counseling practice & helped me to make anything possible, despite my ratio of 1:350 and rural location.

Technology has shaped my school counseling practice into an opportunity for constant collaboration, growth & opportunity, and helped me to improve the organization & efficiency of my office.

Check out all the tech tools highlighted on SCOPE and challenge yourself to learn about a few new tools this summer. I plan to incorporate VoiceThread into my program next year. Read more about my summer plans here. You may also want to check out this post as you prepare for the end of the year.

What will you try? Share your plans for professional development through SCOPE below in the Comments section.