Using technology to optimize counseling services for high school students

A veteran counselor, frustrated because she is unable to provide all of the counseling services that she believes her high school students need, hypothesizes that adding technology will increase school counseling effectiveness. She selects two counseling departments which have technology, have developed their programs around the American School Counseling Association's standards, and are aware of the recommendations of the Education Trust for success for all students. She conducts a total of forty-one interviews over a three-month period and analyzes them using grounded theory. The nine categories in which technology assisted school counselors are described. The author concludes by describing how this study of best practices will impact the development of a technological model at her own school. Finally, she reports that issues of power and control may be at the heart of technological change.