School Counselor Blog

✨ School Counselor Tech Tip: Google Keep ✨ Google Keep is a web-based platform and app that allows you to organize all of your thoughts, ideas, and to-do's. Check out the post below for optimizing Google Keep as a School Counselor! ✨ Digitize Sticky Notes ✨ Google Keep allows you to digitize anything that you would typically write on a sticky note. Google Keep notes are searchable, sortable, shareable. I have so many ideas recorded digitally as notes in Google Keep. I love that I can put them in Google Keep anytime I come up with a new idea. I love that I can easily search my notes to find what I saved. ✨ Maximize Organization ✨ Organize your thoughts and ideas into notes. Include images, drawings, voice to text, and video. Categorize notes by color coding, tagging, and pining. I probably use the voice to text the most when using Google Keep. Sometimes I randomly have an idea that I want to save. Google keep allows me to voice record ...

Andrea Burston ( @jyjcounselor ) and I are excited to present Three Tech Tools to Enhance Your School Counseling Program , this Wednesday May 26th at 12:00 PM EST for the 2021 ASCA Webinar Series.  We will share about how you can use Canva for Education, Smore, and Screencastify to connect with stakeholders. For more details and to register, visit the ASCA website:  www.schoolcounselor.org  or use this direct link:  bit.ly/3techtools4sc . All webinars in the 2021 ASCA Webinar Series are FREE if you are an ASCA member. We can't wait to share how you can use these tech tools to enhance your school counseling program and connect with stakeholders! Have you used Canva, Smore, or Screencastify in your work as a school counselor? I love connecting with other school counselors! Connect with me on  Instagram ,  Twitter , or  Facebook . If you have questions, email me or Direct Message me on  Instagram  or  Twitter .   Upcom...

Andrea Burston and I recorded a YouTube video about What We Wish We Knew in Graduate School. We thought other school counseling graduate students and future school counselors might benefit from hearing us talk about the following tips and information about: 🎓 Making the most of internships 🎓 Interviewing for school counseling positions 🎓 Starting out as a new school counselor 🎓 What we have learned along the way Check out our video and tell us what you think! This is our first attempt at recording conversations about topics relevant to school counselors. We would love to hear your suggestions and ideas for future topics!  If you want to submit a question or topic, share a video recording here: www.speakpipe.com/SCquestions . Your question or topic may be featured in a future school counselor conversation between Andrea Burston and me. I love connecting with other school counselors! Connect with me on  Instagram ,  Twitter , or  Facebook . Upcoming Events: Andrea...

✨ School Counselor Tech Tip: Stickies for Mac ✨ Stickies is a digital sticky note application for your Mac. Stickies have lots of features school counselors can utilize.  Check out the post below for optimizing stickies on your Mac!  ✨ Digital Notes & Reminders ✨ Use stickies to write notes and reminders. Stickies are restored when the application is restarted. Stickies are a great, easily accessible way, to write a digital note or reminder. If you need to write a quick note or reminder and don’t have access to the Internet or a pen and paper, stickies are a great option! ✨ Important Information ✨ Use stickies for important information and/or phone numbers. This important information will be accessible even when there is no access to the Internet. Use stickies to record important information and phone numbers. I store important phone numbers such as Child Protective Services and a local crisis number in stickies. It is helpful to have th...

Andrea Burston ( @jyjcounselor ) and I are excited to announce we are presenting "Three Tech Tools to Enhance Your School Counseling Program," for the ASCA Webinar Series on May 26th at 12pm EST.  We will share about Canva for Education, Smore, and Screencastify.  For more details and to register, visit the ASCA website: www.schoolcounselor.org or use this direct link: bit.ly/3techtools4sc . We can't wait to share how you can use these tech tools to enhance your school counseling program and connect with stakeholders! Have you used Canva, Smore, or Screencastify in your work as a school counselor? I love connecting with other school counselors! Connect with me on  Instagram ,  Twitter , or  Facebook . If you have questions, email me or Direct Message me on  Instagram  or  Twitter .   Upcoming Events: Andrea Burston  and I are hosting an ASCA Webinar -  3 Tech Tools to Enhance Your School Counseling Program  on...

Our PBIS monthly theme is gratitude. While I was brainstorming a bulletin board idea, I stumbled upon an image of a gratitude jar in Canva . I decided to create it as a bulletin board. This gratitude jar bulletin board was super easy to put together. I added things to be grateful for, such as… ✨ Friends ✨ Family ✨ Teachers ✨ Education ✨ Hope What else would you add?  You can get a copy of the words for this bulletin board here or by clicking on the image below.  I got a little carried away and made my jar too big for the space. I could barely fit the words - "So much to be grateful for!" - but I'm so happy with how it turned out. I used Crayola Slick Stix to draw the jar and the accents (hearts and squiggles). I have used them for years. I love how  Crayola Slick Stix  write like a marker but look like a crayon. I linked  Crayola Slick Stix  in my Amazon store under favorite bulletin board supplies, in case you want to...

Google Chrome has an option to group tabs ! On a Mac, you control click on any Chrome website tab to get a drop-down menu. You can create a name for a group of websites. You can even color code your tab!  Check out the post below for tips to optimize grouping tabs! ✨ Visited Daily ✨ Easily access frequently visited websites by grouping them in a "daily" category. I group my course management system, student instructional options, and other frequently used websites into a "daily" tab. It is so convenient to have all of my most used websites easily accessible. ✨ Organized Tasks ✨ Create a tab group for websites needed for different tasks or projects. Each Tuesday, I send out office hour emails to students and families for our asynchronous day. I have a tab with teacher Zoom links and office hours sign ups. This allows me to have everything I need to send out emails. ✨Prepared for Meetings ✨  Facilitate your v...

Join Andrea Burston ( @jyjcounselor ) and Danielle Schultz ( @sch_counselor ) to discuss navigating graduate school and a career as a professional school counselor.  In this session we will share tips, resources, and information about: 🎓 Making the most of internships 🎓 Interviewing for school counseling positions 🎓 Starting out as a new school counselor 🎓 What we have learned along the way This session is for: 🌟 Graduate students or new school counselors who want to ask questions and receive tips, information, and resources! 🌟 School counselors or counselor educators who want to share their knowledge and experience with others! School Counselor Meet Ups provide lots of information and resources in a laid-back conversational format on Google Meet. This is a unique format because you get to "see" (through video chat) school counselors from all over the country.  If you want to join us, sign up at:  http://bit.ly/meetup4sc . We currently have sessions planned thro...

I am hosting virtual events as a way to connect with students. I first heard about Brain Yoga from Alaina ( @cuttingedgeschoolcounselor ). Alaina shared about Brain Yoga in her Instagram Stories and I was very intrigued. Brain Yoga was created by author, Jason Reynolds. Jason Reynolds hosts Brain Yoga games on Instagram Live .  How to Play Brain Yoga To play Brain Yoga, you need the DISRUPTUS game cards . All the DISRUPTUS cards are images of everyday items. Participants are challenged to come up with a new invention using two items on the cards. Participants can use the whole items or parts of the items to make their invention. The goal is to be creative and come up with a new idea. There are no wrong answers.  When I played Brain Yoga with students, we played multiple rounds. In the future, I will probably limit each round to three responses so we can get through more cards and have a quicker pace to the game. Advertising to Students To advertise for ...

Need a last-minute Teacher Appreciation Week gift? Pair a plant with a cute gift tag ! For Teacher Appreciation Week, I bought all of my children’s daycare and Pre-K teachers a plant. I made a gift tag for each one that says “Thank You for Helping me Grow!” I bought all the plants at Trader Joe’s. This plant is called a tornado plant.  You could check your local grocery store or plant nursery.  If you want an editable copy of the "Thanks for Helping Me Grow!" gift tag, click here ! I love connecting with other school counselors! Connect with me on  Instagram ,  Twitter , or  Facebook . If you have questions, email me or Direct Message me on  Instagram  or  Twitter .   Upcoming Events: Andrea Burston  and I are hosting an ASCA Webinar -  3 Tech Tools to Enhance Your School Counseling Program  on May 26th at 12:00pm EST. We will be sharing about Canva, Smore, and Screencastify! Click here ...

I'm new to the email scheduling scene. I didn't see the appeal at first. Now that I'm in the routine of it, I love the ease of scheduling emails! Here are some tips to optimize scheduling emails: ✨ Think About Timing ✨ Don't let your email get lost in the clutter. Schedule your emails to arrive when the recipient will most likely see your email. With strategic planning, your email can arrive at the top of your recipient's inbox! When I schedule emails to send to students, I schedule them to arrive at 8:00 am. Our first class period is 8:00am, so I know they will have their computers open.  ✨ Make it Predictable ✨ If you find yourself sending the same email every week, schedule it to send at a specific time. Your recipient will begin expecting the arrival of your email.  I send a weekly news & events slideshow to the whole school staff. I scheduled my email to arrive at 7:15 am on Monday morning. Staff will begin to expect this email first thing every Monday. ✨ ...

I am hosting virtual events as a way to connect with students. The first virtual event I hosted for students was a Pet Show-and-Tell. Below I share information about hosting a virtual Pet Show-and-Tell at for your students. Advertising to Students To advertise for our Pet Show-and-Tell event I did the following: Wrote a description for the weekly update our principal sends out on our course management system Emailed all fully remote students Sent out a News & Events Slideshow to teachers to project to students Made announcements in student lunches Shared the event on my school Twitter account  How Students Signed Up I created a Pet Show-and-Tell sign up on google forms. I included the link to this form in all the digital advertisements for students (school update, email, and Twitter). I also made a QR code of the the form using QR Code Generator so that students could scan it to sign up.  How Students Joined the Event All stu...

Teacheriation Week is May 3rd through 7th. To spread some cheer, I decorated staff bathrooms. In each bathroom, I put an "Our Teachers are SUN-SATIONAL" printable and sunglasses with adjectives that describe teachers around the mirror. I put a really great smelling soap from Target that matched the color scheme  on each sink. I printed the sunglasses on neon AstroBrights paper .  The soap is Smartly - Citrus Grove from Target. It is super cheap and I think it smells very similar to an Anthropologie Volcano Candle. 😍😍😍 If you want the sunglasses adjectives and the "Our Teachers are SUN-SATIONAL"printable, click here  or on the image below!  If you want to make a large-scale bulletin board, check out my previous post: Teachers are SUN-SATIONAL Bulletin Board. If you have questions, email me or Direct Message me on  Instagram  or  Twitter .   What does your school do to celebrate Teacher App...