Welcome! Thank you for attending today! 1

Announcements GCIS is the new GACollege411 Effective 1/1/15 Will be used for career planning in grades K-12; high schools still use STARS in GACollege411 for transcripts, dual enrollment, etc. Register for the Summer Counselors Workshop Attend the Summer Georgia CTAE Conference in July 2

Agenda Whole Group Technology and Resources for Counselors: How to build a web resource for students and parents using Weebly facilitated by Jenny Vowell, Chickamauga City Breakout Groups: Creating Regional Clearinghouse of Career Activities/Resources High School: Conference Room Middle School: Classroom III Elementary: Model Classroom Whole Group (debriefing from breakouts) Next Steps 3

EdS in Instructional/Educational Technology through Kennesaw State Capstone Project: “Increasing the use of technology in the school counselors daily practice.” I want to help us do our important job more efficiently. What is Jenny doing? 4

I need your help. Please complete the survey that was ed to you from Cathy Myers or Jenny Vowell.survey Thanks so much! 5

What is Jenny doing? How can school counselors use technology to assist students and parents with information that is culturally relevant and pertinent to the needs of the students? 6

Why is this important? Parents and students may often have questions about college entrance requirements, or perhaps they are interested in a technical career that requires two or less years of training. These are important questions that should be presented to the school counselor. 7

Are we in crisis? Due to budget constraints school counselors are now managing so many tasks other than counseling that they may not be able to answer the question in a timely manner. According to the policy report entitled, The Schoolhouse Squeeze: State Cuts, Plunging Property Values Pinch Districts, published by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute “in recent years the Georgia Legislature cut billions in state funding for public schools while plunging property values drove down the main local source of revenue, the property tax” (Suggs, 2013, p.1). In a companion report published by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, entitled Cutting Class to Make Ends Meet, since 2009 nearly 70 percent of districts have cut positions in the area of instructional support which includes school counselors (Suggs, 2013 p. 7). 8

How can technology help Through the use of technology, school counselors are able to give students and parents information that will help them make an informed decision without waiting for a return phone call or making an appointment for a visit in the school counselors’ office. 9

The Digital Natives are Restless! Douglas Levin and Sousan Arafeh assert, “Students look to the internet for guidance about life decisions as they relate to school, careers and postsecondary education” (2013, p. 6). 10

Are you ready? Let’s take a look at some school webpages and websites AlbanyAlbany High School Fales ElementaryFales 11

I know some of you are thinking…that guy had one job. Not to worry! Weebly is very easy to use. We will go through the steps together and you’ll have lots of help along the way. 12

Go to weebly.comweebly.com create an account 13

Let’s tour the Good Life High School Website and learn how to build a website. Good Life High SchoolSchool 14

Overview: As we move toward developing a web presence for our own school counseling departments, we also want to have a web resource for the counselors in the NWGA RESA service area and we need your help. In the breakout sessions we would like for you to work together to determine what information you would like the web resource to contain. Step 1: Please use the sheet labeled School Counselors Web Presence Planning Sheet. The planning sheet has a few resource listed that your group members may want view to get a few ideas of what counseling resources are available. Step 2: Graphic of blank computer screen sheet. We need to know what you would like to have included on the front page of the web resources for school counselors. Please take the ideas you have and sketch them on the screen. This does not have to be very detailed, just a plan of what you want and where you think it should go. Step 3: Some other stuff we thought about sheet. The last page is for your group or individuals to add other thoughts or ideas. Sometimes when we are thinking about something we have a few inspired ideas. We want to know about your inspired ideas, thoughts, suggestions or anything else that will help us make the school counselors web resource fantastic! Step 4: Reporting to the large group. Please use your choice of chart paper, iPad, or computer to record some of the ideas that your group really liked. These will be shared in the large group wrap up session. Lastly, please collect all the planning sheets, the graphic of the computer screen sheets and the other stuff we thought about sheets and give those to either Jenny Vowell or Cathy Myers. If you decide to use a computer or iPad to record the ideas for the large group, please this to Jenny Vowell at or to Cathy Myers at 15

Now that you have learned about Weebly and building websites lets go into our breakout groups. Breakout Groups: Creating Regional Clearinghouse of Career Activities/Resources High School: Conference Room Middle School: Classroom III Elementary: Model Classroom 16

Go Get ‘em! Have fun! 17

Northwest Georgia RESA School Counselors 18