Author: Melissa A. Venable

Getting Ready for #NCDAHouston!

/ Melissa A. Venable / 2 Comments

It’s hard to believe that the 2019 NCDA Global Career Development Conference is happening next week.

If you are planning to attend, please consider joining us for our session, #112 Share and Share Alike: Peer-Recommended Tech Tools that Bridge the Distance in Career Development, on the schedule for Thursday at 3:30pm.

Thanks to Karol Taylor, who sparked the topic idea with her suggestion to have a roundtable where attendees could share their favorite apps, we have a full session of sharing planned. Deb and I will each share our top 10 tools of the past year, we will introduce our growing Tool Library, and we will let you know about a few other helpful technology collections. But, the exciting part of this session will be the resources suggested by all who attend.

If you aren’t able to be at the conference in person:

  • Watch this blog! We’ll share not only our slide presentation, but also the tools we collect during the session, shortly after the conference.
  • You can also follow the conference hashtag, #NCDAHouston, all week.
  • What tools would you recommend? Add your suggestions here in the comments area. 🙂

 

Featured Resource – The Good Project

/ Melissa A. Venable / Leave a comment

Welcome to another “Featured Resource!” Our Tool Library is growing with new categories and items. This month, we focus on the Career category and a site called “The Good Project,” which shares “ideas and tools for a good life.” 🙂

The Good Project promotes excellence, engagement, and ethics in education, preparing people to become good workers and good citizens who contribute to the overall well-being of society.

Developed by a research unit of Harvard Project Zero, this site offers collections of resources curated for educators and practitioners, students, and researchers. From a blog and social feeds (check them out on Twitter and Facebook), to a newsletter and curricula toolkits, you’ll find a range of inspiration from The Good Project. Here are a few of the highlights:

  • Course Syllabi: Interested in new ideas for your career course? Browse syllabi from K-12 and college classes across the country, including titles like “Meaningful Work in a Meaningful Life.”
  • Activities: What is Good Work? Answering this question is just one of the sample activities provided by this site, all of which are designed to spark conversation and reflection.
  • Value Sort: Who doesn’t love a card sort? This online version allows you (or your student or client) to drag and drop 30 values to columns ranked by their importance. Print your results at the end.

What do you like about The Good Project? What is your favorite career-related tool? Enjoy your exploration of this and other tool library resources. We look forward to your feedback. 🙂

image source: WildOne, Pixabay

Challenge Your Social Media Status Quo

/ Melissa A. Venable / Leave a comment

This is a “reprint” from my Social Media column in the Career Development Network‘s  March-April 2019 Newsletter – Volume 41, Number 2.

This New Year isn’t so new anymore as the months pick up speed and calendars get full. One result is that my motivation for social media fades. I know I need to keep up, but as my time and energy start to wane, social media ends up on the back burner. If you are like me, it may be time to refresh your approach. Luckily, there are a few small steps we can take to get back on track.

social media inspiration

Set Up a Social Media Schedule

Develop a short list of social media tasks you want to accomplish every day, week, month, etc., and add them to your calendar! Social Media Today [1] provides a sample checklist to get you started. Making decisions in advance about what you’ll do and when can take some of the anxiety out of the process.

Create New Content

Sharing what others share is effective, and easy, but mixing in your own original posts is important, too. Constant Contact [2] created a 30-day content challenge with ideas like “Answer a Question”, “Share something funny”, “Give a shout out to another organization,” and many more. Explore the suggestions and add a few to your schedule.

Find Some Inspiration

When is the last time you followed new accounts and hashtags? It may be time to add an influx of creativity to your social media feed. Another Social Media Today resource [3] suggests five tools to find inspiration. One tool, Forecast, can help you find new events, while another, Feedly, helps you find new websites and forums.

What will it take to move you from passive to active with your social media accounts? It’s absolutely okay to take a break from social media (I even recommend it), but don’t stay away too long. Whether you are searching for a job, building a community, or extending the reach of your career office, find a way to jump start your social media efforts.

Resources

[1] Social Media Today. Your Ultimate Social Media Checklist. https://bit.ly/2NpnvEs

[2] Constant Contact. 30 Day Social Media Content Challenge. https://conta.cc/2k21rw8

[3] Social Media Today. 5 Tools for Social Media Content Inspiration. https://bit.ly/2BUHEun

Featured Resource – The Free Mindfulness Project

/ Melissa A. Venable / Leave a comment

Welcome to the first in our new series of “Featured Resource” posts! As we continue to build the Tool Library, we thought it would be helpful to introduce you to some of these tools with a little more detail and an invitation for you to provide your feedback. The featured resource this month is The Free Mindfulness Project.

mindfulness

Clinical Psychologist Peter Morgan created this site to share a range of resources from videos and poetry to apps and discussion forums. What can you find on The Free Mindfulness Project? Here are a few of the highlights:

  • Guided Mindfulness Exercises – Whether you are looking for a meditation guide to take you through breathing awareness, imagery, or a body scan you’ll find multiple options here. You’ll also find a range of timed self-guided options available. Try the “5 minutes just bells” download for a quick mindfulness break at your desk. More than 25 files are available for you to download with an open, Creative Commons license (CC: BY-NC-SA).
  • How is my mind right now? – “We are living in an increasingly busy world. Often we are wrapped up in thoughts and feelings, constantly moving from one thing to the next without a moment’s peace.” Sound familiar? This brief page provides the place to begin your mindfulness journey.
  • Discussion Forum – Are you interested in talking to other people about mindfulness? This site provides a link to Everyday-mindfulness.org, an active online community in which you can join conversations and groups to learn more.

While this site’s blog and Twitter account have not been active recently, the resources listed above remain available and relevant.

What do you like about The Free Mindfulness Project? What is your favorite mindfulness tool? We’re looking forward to your feedback. 🙂

P.S. You may not be surprised that I would pick a mindfulness tool first. I have been a fan of the Stop, Breathe & Think app for years now, and continue to be amazed at the growing focus on mindfulness in education. If you are interested in learning more, please take a look at my recent interview with Coach and Counselor Tiffany Guske – Mindful Online Teaching and Learning.

Namaste, my friends. 🙂

Introducing … Our New Tool Library!

/ Melissa A. Venable / 1 Comment

Are you looking for ideas or resources to support your career counseling or coaching work? Make your first stop our new online Tool Library.

We’ve categorized a collection of tools into nine primary subject areas: Anxiety, Career, Eating, Elementary, Family, Mindfulness, Recovery, Transitions, and Trauma. Each subject is divided into four tool types: Blogs and Podcasts, Apps, Twitter accounts, and Websites.

This resource is in ongoing development, and we’ll officially launch it at the NCDA Annual Conference in Houston this June. Our session “Share and Share Alike: Peer-Recommended Tech Tools that Bridge the Distance in Career Development” will include an overview of the resources as well as our favorite tools of the past year. We’ll also get attendees involved in sharing their recommendations during and after the session.

In the meantime, take some time to review what we’ve built so far. For a guided tour of the Tool Library, click on the image below for a brief screencast:

We welcome your feedback in the comments below.

  • What other types of tools would you want to see us include in the future?
  • How easy (or difficult) is the library to use?

 

Â