Teaching and Guidance Counseling

Have you every been in a situation where you needed one of your PowerPoints but did not have it with you? I have. Being in three buildings as a guidance counselor each week, I found it a challenge to always remember what to bring with me. Slideshare solved my problem. With the use of slideshare your PowerPoints are stored on the Web and you can use them anywhere you have a computer with an internet connection. You can open a free account, upload your PowerPoint, and mark it private or public.

Tags: bcejan08pls, Instructional Strategies, Slideshare, Web 2.0

Service Delivery from the Guidance Office is seeing big shifts:                                     

Students in my middle schools are no longer just readers of or listens to information put out by guidance counselors. Within the password protected Blackboard site our District has set up for me for guidance curriculum, we have Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, Videocasts, Email, Homepages, Calendars, Discussion Boards, Questions forums, Guidance PowerPoints, Articles, etc. Our students are able to interact with the information we post and with each other as they share their thoughts, ideas, and suggestions for application of guidance curriculum. Because we have more than one middle school, we are able to put students in touch with students from other buildings within a safe internet system. As students learn that our site is a Read/Write site we are getting more and more participation.

 Right now I am doing a project with my 8th grade gifted students on Blackboard. We are using the message system, discussion board, Blogs, Wikis, course documents, etc to learn more about the 7 Habits and how they can be applied. I have three middle schools so my time in each building is limited. Being able to communicate with students through Blackboard enables me to better meet their needs. In the future, I can see doing group counseling through password protected Wikis or chat rooms within our system. 

When I first started learning about Web 2.0 technology in the classroom, my brain hurt and I thought this would be over my head. After only a few weeks of training, I see Web 2.0 tools helping me provide great  service my students more effectively. Using technology in the guidance office is a shift that my colleagues were originally surprised by and resistant to. Now after seeing what I am doing, they want a guidance page set up for our whole Guidance department so they can do what I am doing. The more students we reach out and help students and their families, the more other staff will see the usefulness of Web 2.0 technology in all areas of education.

Tags: beejan08pls, Guidance Counseling, Instructional Strategies, Web 2.0

Skypecasts Academic Potential  is out there promoting Skype and Skypecasts in education.  Edutechie.com facilitated a Skypecast recently to talk to others about using Skype in Education.  It did not work as well as he would have liked.  When too many people try to join the chat at the same time you have chaos and that is what he had during the first few minutes.  When he used his moderator tools, things calmed down and were more orderly.  Skypecasting takes practice, organization, and dedication.  It is a good place for people to practice talking to others from foreign countries if they want to improve their language skills.  I think Skype can be very useful for families, small work groups, and college study groups.  I am not sure I would ever use it for the classroom, though because I think there are easier ways to accomplish the same goal.  In the future, I think I would use AOL IM Video to connect with other educators and students.  It is more user friendly and you can see the people you are talking to quite easily.  Whatever you decide to use, using a real-time connection helps build relationships, helps turn work around faster, and keeps people motivated because they have fun using it. 

Tags: bcejan08pls, Web 2.0

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/4917/studentsoncomputersgl3.jpg

I agree with the authors of the Wikispace bcejan08pls  who stated, “Connectivism, a learning theory developed by Siemens, supports the students of today’s society.” My students are online daily making connectings to other students in our district through Web 2.0 social networking sites.  They share knowledge relating to the processes, products, and content of their learning.  Because of their sharing they are growing more than they could do alone.   No longer to students learn alone, they are living in a Web 2.0 technology age and to keep up, they must join communities of learning using Web 2.0 technology. 

Tags: bcejan08pls, Connectivism, Web 2.0