Tech Tools for Counselors 2012

My number one tool is Blogger, which I use to make this blog. I do my school counseling program web page (and online newsletter) through the program used by our whole school division. I have already written about two of my favorite tools Live Binder It to save good resources and share them and Tagxedo to make stylish word clouds. As an elementary counselor, it is critical to get ongoing professional development, gather, and share ideas with other counselors. I utilize the ASCA Scene, Twitter, and Pinterest to keep up and stay energized. I am now a big fan of Google Docs Forms (survey development and tracking with Excel). The Google Docs survey development is so much more flexible than Survey Monkey which I had been using. I remain a very active PowerPoint user. I like it better than Prezi or the Smartboard software. I make PowerPoints for grades 3-5 for lessons I show through the Smartboards and use it for parent and professional presentations. Prezi gives me vertigo and since I use an IBM I can’t save it privately or print. My latest favorite is Dropbox.com a cloud free service that allows you to have your documents, photos, and videos available on any computer without carrying around a collection of thumb drives. I actually had a night mare that a computer fried my most loaded thumb drive last week. That was motivation enough to load Dropbox on my computer at home and school so I can begin saving what I don’t ever want to lose. Send me a comment if you have another suggestion for me.