Advocating for Your Role as a School Counselor

Not sure where to start to advocate for your role as a school counselor in your district?   How about sharing the most recent exciting events in school counseling with your administrative team and fellow counselors.  I sent an email with the link to the First Lady's speech at the ASCA Conference.  Find it here: First Lady Addresses Counselors at ASCA Conference.  I also sent the link that contains the letter Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wrote in relation to school counselors that was mentioned by the First Lady.  It can be found here:  Secretary of Education Letter.  While advocating for ourselves as school counselors may be something we are not always comfortable with doing, it is a very important piece to ensure we can help all students achieve success.  What else can you do to advocate for your role as school counselors?

ASCA Conference Magic

After just returning from the ASCA Conference in Orlando...Building Magical Futures, I was inspired to start a blog to share my journey in helping students develop their own magic.  As school counselors, we are constantly working to inspire students to dream for their futures.  Hopefully, this blog will enable us to share the tools we use to make this happen.


I always love attending conference to learn new "tools of the trade" for school counseling.  This year at ASCA, I learned about several new technology tools that I thought I would share.  Hope you find them useful in your school.

1. Kahoot!: This on-line tool is free and allows users to develop interactive quizzes for students.  I cannot wait to use this in my classroom guidance lessons.  After developing the quiz, there is a link students can use to answer the questions in a game show like format.  Students can use their own personal devices, or a school's device to play.  Students can play against each other to try to top the on-screen leader board.
2. Grade Cam:  This on-line tool allows users to develop a quiz and print on a special scan form.  After students complete the quiz, they can scan their quiz using the camera on your computer and instantly get their score.  I plan on using this in my guidance lessons as a review tool at the end of the lesson.  It is a simple, interactive and fun way to check for understanding on the day's lesson.
3. QR Codes: While I knew about these before, and always said I would use them, some new ideas were presented at the conference.  There are several websites that allow you to make a QR code (http://www.qrstuff.com/ and http://www.visualead.com/).  Both allow you to generate a QR code that will link to websites, text, You Tube, etc.  I want to use QR codes in the classroom to quickly link to websites and make a lesson more interactive.  I also want to place QR codes on posters in the hallway to link to announcements and events and to promote the school counseling department.
4. S'More:  S'More is an on-line site to help create fun and exciting flyers to send to parents and students.  I want to begin to use these to send more information home to the parents in my building.