Download Welcome! Thank you for attending today! 1 Announcements GCIS is

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
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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
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What is Jenny
doing?
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.
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I need your help.
Please complete the survey that was emailed to
you from Cathy Myers or Jenny Vowell.
Thanks so much!
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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?
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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).
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Are you ready?
Let’s take a look at some
school webpages and
websites
Albany High School
Fales Elementary
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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.
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Go to
weebly.com
create an account
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Let’s tour the Good Life High
School Website and learn how to
build a website.
Good Life High School
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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 email this to Jenny Vowell at [email protected] or to Cathy Myers at [email protected]
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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
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Go Get
‘em!
Have fun!
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Northwest Georgia
RESA School Counselors
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