Nathaly Fernandez   on Tuesday 09/09/2025 at 02:06 PM

As someone who works with adult learners, I know how overwhelming technology and applications can feel after being out of school for some time. I found these tips on streamlining applications, using AI for writing, and exploring careers online really helpful. All the topics are on point; financial aid, for example, is a challenge that causes a lot of anxiety. Reading this reinforces that I’m working in the right space and community, where our biggest goal is supporting adults as they navigate a world that’s rapidly shifting with technology. And this also reassures me that I am on the right educational journey myself.

Cami Crook   on Tuesday 09/16/2025 at 07:41 PM

As a young adult preparing to enter the professional world I found the section on Social Media prescence extremely important, it serves as a reminder that everything you have posted from a young age has a digital footprint and can be found online. This article serves as an important reminder to be smart about what you post. Additionally, I sub at my local elementary school and high school sometimes and the point in the article about the evolution of technology is crucial. Working in the same buildings where I went to school provides me with an interesting baseline for what has changed over time. The biggest thing that I've noticed parallels with this article, technology. The students use and are exposed to so many more helpful videos, platforms, and websites that assist them in day to day work. This always efficiency of teaching and learning, and provides so much extra support to the students.

Steve Vargas   on Wednesday 09/17/2025 at 12:51 PM

This article illustrates the essential role that digital tools play in helping students navigate academics and career readiness. Ms. Evans mentions many practical strategies to accomplish this task, which is crucial to school counselors. Organizational apps to help students keep deadlines, career resources that provide insights in future jobs, and tools like the Myers-Briggs temperament sorter to help students know themselves are all part of the tech package used to aid school counselors in their task.

Yalitsa Disla   on Wednesday 09/17/2025 at 10:55 PM

This article was super helpful as a graduate student in a school counseling program. We have all adapted to a world where technology is so deeply embedded in education that I almost forgot how essential it is in our lives. Having all of these educational tools highlighted reminds me of my own educational experience, particularly using most of these platforms throughout high school and undergrad. The Common App and Zoom were crucial in my college-prep journey as a senior applying to colleges throughout Covid. I'm sure many more tools like these will continue to emerge and shape the way students prepare for college. Therefore, it is essential to continuously learn how we can use these resources to support our students' academic success.

Maggie Mullen   on Thursday 09/18/2025 at 08:25 AM

As a graduate student who is studying school counseling, your technology tips were specifically helpful, especially when considering how much of students’ college and career preparation is dependent on digital tools. I appreciate how you bring up tools like MyCoalition and Common App for tracking deadlines, and other websites like Zoom or Microsoft Teams for helping with accessibility. Especially as a teacher right now these websites come in handy with being able to stay connected with my students on days like PD Days.These are absolutely websites that I will continue to use when I become a licensed counselor. Your caution about maintaining authenticity when using AI Tools also was something that stood out as a college student when AI was first becoming popularized. This piece has given me ideas to bring to my future occupation and a deeper understanding of how to balance technology usage in my everyday job with student support.

Jake Burns   on Thursday 09/18/2025 at 11:39 AM

As a prospective school counselor, these technology tips will most definitely come in handy. I like how there was an emphasis on only using ChatGPT for generating ideas and suggestions, instead of using it to just complete the assignment for you. With the rise in popularity of ChatGPT it’s important that we utilize it in the correct ways. These technology tips will come in handy in my future work. Specifically, I think a tip that will stick with me is the interactive career exploration tools. Being able to shadow someone remotely to see if their job is an avenue you’d like to pursue seems extremely helpful. Reading about someone’s role is entirely different than actually seeing the work at hand, so being able to shadow someone remotely can help solidify someone’s decision to go (or not go) into a particular field. These resources are great to have since I’ll be working with high school students on college/career exploration. I can’t wait to utilize them in my practice!

Victoria leyden   on Thursday 09/18/2025 at 02:05 PM

Technology really helps students feel more prepared for college and future careers. Apps like the Common App or FAFSA, MyStudentAid make it easier to keep track of applications, deadlines, and financial aid without feeling overwhelmed. Tools such as Grammarly or ChatGPT can give students a boost when writing essays while still letting their own voice shine through. Career sites like Virtual Job Shadow and Pymetrics help them explore different jobs and see what might fit their skills and interests. Overall, these tools take a lot of stress out of the process and give students the confidence to plan for what comes next.

Rachel Pesce   on Thursday 09/18/2025 at 02:22 PM

As a school counseling grad student, I found this article super helpful and relevant to what I’m learning right now. It does a great job breaking down all the tech tools that can really make a difference in the college and career planning process. I especially liked the section on AI writing tools—it's a good reminder that while these tools are helpful, students still need to make their essays personal and authentic. The part about social media was also eye-opening, especially with that stat about admissions officers checking profiles. One thing I think could be useful is maybe adding tips on how to figure out which tools are best for different types of students since not every app will work for everyone. Overall, this is a great resource that I could see myself using in the future when working with students!

Molly Frazier    on Thursday 09/18/2025 at 05:12 PM

While I am currently helping a high school senior apply to college during my masters in school counseling, it is so beneficial that students have access to all of these amazing resources. Starting the college search and application is so daunting, especially as a first generation and having resources to help keep it all organized and make sure everything that is getting completed helps relieve that added layer of stress. Also, with the busy schedules of seniors as well as school counselors, having virtual tools and scheduling makes it possible to keep up with the whole experience without having to meet for every question or tip. Although it’s not part of the college application process, budgeting for college students is so important and students are not educated about this so having these apps to help them through a new stage in life is great to see.

Mary Monticello   on Saturday 09/20/2025 at 02:56 PM

I thoroughly agree with your discussion of career assessment tools! O*NET OnLine's database and My Next Move/Mi Proximo Paso (the Spanish translation) are excellent starting points for career decision-making and awareness. As a middle school para-educator, I have used the My Next Move/Mi Proximo Paso interest profiler with students to help them find career fields they can pursue. I've noticed that after completing the assessment, some students were very excited thinking about potential future careers, including some that they had never heard of before or considered! As I had some background information on Holland's Theory and RIASEC types, I was able to explain to them what their scores meant and how it applied to the career paths shown. This led to further brainstorming with the students about what other careers they could pursue after high school and college.

Further, I also encourage others to use O*NET's database to help construct resumes with older students (or for themselves!). The tool is very useful in helping articulate the tasks performed in different jobs in simple yet professional language. In my own case, I've found previous tasks I've performed in seemingly unrelated jobs (e.g., waitressing and small-scale office management) were actually quite relevant for my current position as a para-educator.

I know that this is a small point in your discussion, but I feel that it is very important to note that we should still be wary of language modeling tools like Grammarly for student writing, especially for professionals who work with ESL students like myself. Many students, not just ESL students, struggle with grammar in their writing, and I worry that using services like Grammarly may encourage an over-reliance on the technology (Koltovskaia, 2020) rather than actually strengthening students' writing skills in the long run. Grammarly's feedback is often "unhelpful, inaccurate, and decontextualized' and does not help students understand grammatical rules (Zhang, Ozer, & Bayazeed, 2020). Dorothy Mayne notes in her 2021 blog post for University of Wisconsin-Madison that it is a "helpful, but unreliable tool," and seems to be best applied with writers who are knowledgeable enough to override incorrect corrections from these tools. As professionals we should keep this in mind when suggesting writing tools for student use.

Below are the full citations for the articles discussed, if anyone is interested!
Koltovskaia, S. (2020). Student engagement with automated written corrective feedback (AWCF) provided by Grammarly: A multiple case study. Assessing Writing, 44, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ask.2020.100450.
Mayne, D. (2021, January 26). Revisiting Grammarly: An imperfect tool for final editing. Another Word: From the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. https://dept.writing.wisc.edu/blog/revisiting-grammarly/?source=post_page-----1368162b0fba---------------------------------------#_ednref3
Zhang, J., Ozer, H. Z., & Bayazeed, R. (2020.) Grammarly vs. face-to-face tutoring at the writing center: ESL student writers' perceptions. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 17(2). https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/f3bda76d-0de2-42ee-aaf1-3a8d918e4791/content

Jayden Peacock   on Tuesday 09/23/2025 at 01:02 PM

This article highlights how technology has influenced how students prepare for careers, and I thought it was interesting how it linked useful resources to the counselor's job of helping students navigate challenging processes. What stood out to me was the idea that while apps and AI platforms can streamline tasks, the counselor remains central in helping students personalize and authentically navigate these resources. The balance between efficiency and authenticity is, in my opinion, essential to professional growth. It is important students learn how to use tools responsibly and effectively, not just being able to simply use the tool.This thought reinforced to me that carefully incorporating technology into instruction is more about giving kids long-term coping mechanisms to deal with a world that is becoming more and more digital than it is about replacing traditional supervision.