Counseling in Education

School Counseling and Technology

School Counseling and Technology

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School counseling and technology

• Counselors too must learn how to keep abreast with technology in

order to be more effective and efficient in their work.
• They need to have some basic levels of technological literacy so
that they will not be left behind in this modern era.
• Progressively powerful computers, software, and expanding
networks are rapidly changing traditional school counseling
approaches and standards of performance.

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School counseling and technology

• Counseling professionals must adapt to new ways of interfacing

with machines and the people that use them in the way that
promotes the goals and objectives of their work.
• School counselors that decide to “opt out” of information
technology would be poorly perceived by students today.
• Information and networking technologies are now essential tools
for manipulating ideas and images and for communicating
effectively with others – an important component of counselor’s
job.

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School counseling and technology

• School counselors are increasingly being held responsible for

knowing and keeping track of all sorts of information such as
student records, student contacts, parent conferences, case notes,
counseling schedules, accountability data, list of tasks, and
sometimes grades.
• Without the help of technology, counselors may feel overwhelmed,
unorganized, or lost as a result of the sheer quantity of information.
Consequently, effectiveness and motivation could suffer.
• Technology can make the process more efficient, accurate, and
automated.

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 The growth of
technology in school counseling: 1980-2010

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1980 - 1989

• As dusk fell on the 1970’s, the 1980’s brought on the dawn of

acceptance in regards to the role technology was to play in the
future of the school counseling profession.
• It was predicted that knowledge of computer use would become a
basic part of work in counseling, human development, and the
helping professions.
• The school counselors perception on computer/technology were
still low – based on a research which was conducted by Blum and
Kishner (1988): 130 counselors were interviewed – 80% of them
said they did not agree that computers should play a large role
within any school counseling program.

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1990 - 1999

• The decade of the 1990’s could be viewed as the “Age of

Exploration” in regards to technology. Technology conquered
many facets of human existence and revealed new frontiers,
providing opportunities for further triumphs within the technological
community.
• It was also during this decade that technological terms such as “e-
mail”, “internet”, and “search engine” all became commonplace
within our daily personal and professional conversations.

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1990 - 1999

• Throughout this decade, school counselors used technology as a

method to engage students within lessons and activities delivered
by them.
• Computing systems provided a large number of software tools for
working with various media.

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2000 - 2010
• As we progressed into the new millennium, technology in the field of
school counseling was no longer simply new and intriguing.
• Technology in education and, more specifically, school counseling
was widely accepted as the future.
• School counselors, as in most professional occupations had no
choice but to become part of the technological revolution.
• Experts in the field were realizing counselors who resisted the new
tools of this century would find it increasingly more difficult to do so.
• Technology was here to stay, and school counselors began to
identify ways to use this technology to increase professional
efficiency.

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2000 - 2010

• Using computer conferencing, electronic mail, and voice mail

applications, counselors can communicate with each other and
other stakeholders at any time and any place.
• Interactive multimedia instructional software allow counselors to
better control learning segments and explore new segments at a
depth and pace appropriate to their students’ own learning needs
during psycho-educational groups.

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2000 - 2010

• Electronic links can help extend the counselor and school to

community partners such as health centers, community counseling
centers, business and industry, government and non-profit
agencies, cultural facilities, and vast library resources.
• Information databases that are available for counselors and others
to access and update, as authorized, allow for more convenient
and efficient services, such as off-site college registration, financial
aid and admissions processing, student career counseling profiles,
full-text databases of scholarly publications, student progress data,
and more.

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2000 - 2010

• Networking technologies and software tools affect the way

decisions are made by expediting the availability and distribution of
data throughout a counselor’s school. Cross-institutional work
groups and an appropriate balance between distributed and
centralized technical support will make possible collaborative
planning and resource management.

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Ethical and Legal Use of Technology

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Ethical and Legal Use of Technology

• Counselors need be ethically responsible in using Internet when

conducting all kinds of transactions, including counseling.
• They need to make sure the channel of communication is safe,
secure, ethical, and contributes to the overall welfare of all
involved.
• Confidentiality:
• The counselor-client relationship is a private one and requires
compliance by laws, policies, and ethical standard pertaining to
confidentiality.

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