Below are just a few of the possible ways that school counselors can use technology to make their school counseling program more efficient and more beneficial for the entire school!
Counselor Organization
- Google calendar- scheduling at a glance
- Google docs- surveys and forms, share documents, spreadsheets
- Individual Notes- (careful to ensure student confidentiality!)
- Keep track of parent contacts
- create charts and graphs for accountability
- Dropbox- Instead of filing cabinets full of papers, keep resources at the click of a button!
Individual/Group counseling
- Minute Meetings using Ipad
- Check-ins using google forms
- Ipad apps for relaxation, ADHD, character education, emotions, problem solving, etc. This site has some great links: Korea International School - Elementary Counseling
Classroom Guidance
- Smartboard activities-
- text your answer- http://www.polleverywhere.com/
- youtube videos
- http://edudemic.com/2012/08/50-education-technology-tools-every-teacher-should-know-about/
- Career exploration- O*Net, Bridges, Paws in Jobland, Career Cruiser, Career Webquest
- Powerpoint or Prezi presentations
- Wordle.net - great for lesson summaries, brainstorming, character building, compliments, and so much more! See my lesson with Wordles here
- Classroom timers
School-wide
- Survey teachers, parents, and students using Survey Monkey
- Pinterest- sharing ideas with teachers through community boards (see my post about Pinterest here!)
- Facebook- keep parents in the loop
- Generate QR codes for quick access to information with smart phones
- Edmodo- Social Networking designed for schools
Other
- Posts related to technology on The Inspired Counselor
- Convert PDF's to Word- http://www.pdftoword.com/
- Keep up-to-date with the latest research-based interventions with sites like Intervention Central
- create newsletters, flyers, and other documents
- Doodle.com- online scheduling tool that can be used quickly and easily to find a date and time to meet with multiple people
- Professional Development- such as the ASCA webinars
- http://voicethread.com/
- http://www.kerpoof.com/
- Connect with and learn from other school counselors- https://schoolcounselor.org/scene
