4.5 Technology assisted school counselor and principal collaboration  (Page 2/16)

Today’s flat, high-tech, multicultural, and fast paced world requires high levels of collaboration, flexibility and responsiveness within any system (e.g., family, economic, corporate, school, or social) to best meet its needs and fulfill its mission. This is also certainly true of our educational systems and, in particular, our school counseling programs. No individual alone can achieve what is required to provide a high quality and comprehensive education among our students.

In targeting barriers to relationships in their survey, respondents identified what they considered to be the most important aspects of an effective relationship between principals and counselors (College Board National Office for School Counselor Advocacy, 2009; Finkelstein, 2009). Among other behaviors perceived as important to collaborating, both principals and school counselors ranked as second most important “Open communication that provides multiple opportunities for input to decision making.” The highest rated element was “Mutual trust and respect between the principal and counselors”. Another noteworthy finding is that both school counselors and principals saw time as being the biggest barrier to collaboration between them.

The focus of this article is to provide a practical overview of how technology can assist school counselors and administrators collaborate, communicate, and share information for decision-making more effectively, efficiently, and perhaps more enjoyably in the context of their unique roles and obligations. (NOTE: For the remainder of the article, “collaboration” will refer to the processes of collaboration, communication, and shared decision-making. Included throughout are various practical examples about how school counselors and administrators collaborate and make decisions using technology.

The nature of high-tech collaboration

Over electronic networks, educators can communicate and collaborate with students, teachers, administrators, parents, community members, and other educators with greater convenience and efficiency than ever before. While you are reading this, thousands of educators enjoy the convenience of corresponding, consulting, and collaborating with each other via social networks, e-mail, text messages, discussion forums, chat rooms, instant messaging, and VOIP (i.e., voice over internet protocol) to name a few.

Collaboration in particular is a process by which people work together on an intellectual, academic, or practical endeavor. In essence, they “co-labor” toward a common mission or goal. In the past, the process of collaboration occurred in person, by letter, fax, or on the telephone. Today’s high-tech collaboration connects individuals and/or groups over an electronic network (e.g., internet, intranet, cellular network, closed circuit television) using tools that are becoming increasingly cheaper, powerful, and more easily accessible. Working over an electronic medium allows collaborators to communicate and work together anytime, from anywhere, and from virtually any place on the planet. People from different parts of a building, school district, state, country, or continent can, for example, exchange information and, together as a team, develop documents, ponder ideas, discuss issues, reflect on their own practices, make decisions, or collate data. Collaborators can now work at a distance and accomplish just about anything that they at one time could only do if they were actually together in the same room at the same time. The limitations of space, pace, and time have been dissolved with today’s anytime, anywhere, on-demand work spaces and high-tech tools designed to help us synergize our talents and passions.