2013 ASCA Conference Recap

I'm back from yet another fun, fantastic and encouraging ASCA conference!  This time in Philadelphia, PA.  I had a blast being able to gain new ideas and tips to bring to my school and of course the best part of all...connecting with so many amazing school counselors.  The tweet up and blogger meet and greet where both a success!  It was so awesome to meet school counselors I follow through social media in person.

Don't forget you can still download the conference app (for free) to get all the handouts from the presentations.  You can also search social media with the hashtag #asca13 for others tweets, instagram pictures, posts, etc about the conference.  The easiest way to share my experience is through photos, so here goes....

First, shout out to the city of Philadelphia for hosting us:

Now on to the conference events:

Conference Center

Opening Session Speaker:  Chef Jeff

Exhibit Hall 

Tweet Up:

Meeting Rebecca (@SchCslgByHeart).  When we met, we both literally screamed because of the excitement!

with Rebecca Burkhart (@RebBurkhart)

with my blog buddy Danielle Schultz (@sch_counselor)

with Carli (@carlicounsels) and friend

The Tech Smackdown Presentation was awesome and it was so good to see our smackdown team together again.  To get our handout click here.

Smackdown team together again:  Danielle Schultz, Andrea Burston, Russ Sabella, Julia Taylor & Erin Mason.

Breakfast with Iowa School Counselors (thanks to Susan @cmsfl for all your #asca13 tweets)

The School Counselor Blogger Meet & Greet was a success!  It was so wonderful to meet all the bloggers that I've been following and meet the awesome readers that read our blogs.  It was a pleasure to meet you not only at the meet and greet but all throughout the conference.  Thank you readers for taking the time to read what happens in my little school counselor world, I love being able to connect with you!

School Counselor Bloggers:  Front Row: Rebecca from School Counseling By Heart, me (Andrea) from JYJ Counselor, Danielle from The School Counselor Blog
Back Row:  Jeremy from Pikesville High Counseling Dept, Marissa from Elementary School Counseling.org, Darrell from The Counselor's Office , Jeff from The Counseling Geek, Sue from Entirely Elementary

During our meet and greet (hosted by myself & Danielle) as promised we had great giveaways.  So of course I had to add just a hint of tech in it.  Everyone that attended got a card with 2 QR codes on it.  One code linked to all the blogs of the bloggers in attendance and the other was to determine if you won a prize.  By the way the prizes were really nice, I even wore one myself during the conference.

Meet & Greet QR Codes

School Counselors check to see if they've won a prize.

Danielle, Sue & I talk with Candice from AZ and Christina from OH.

More meet & greet mingling

Jeff talks during the meet & greet

Prize Winners:  Just in case you want these items for yourself, you can order them here.

Keep Calm I'm a School Counselor mug

School Counselors Rock mug

iCounsel t-shirt (in black)

Keep Calm t-shirt

iCounsel t-shirt (in white)

Told you I love this iCounsel t-shirt (in gray)!  And if you notice behind me is the Philadelphia Museum of Art, these are the steps that Rocky ran up in the movie! 

The Get UR Blog on Presentation with Danielle Schultz went fantastic. We both suspect that we'll have even more school counselor created blogs, yay.  To see our handout click here.

With blog buddy Danielle at our Get UR Blog On Presentation

Closing session with Rachel Simmons

As you can see, the ASCA conference was quite an event.  I was soooo tired (but in a good way) after this trip.  Being at ASCA totally pumps you up about our wonderful school counseling profession.  As I left Philadelphia, I was reminded of how much we make a difference to our students...here's my quick story.  As I sat in the Philadelphia airport, I notice a young lady that looks like a former student that I taught years ago.   I almost go over to speak but think to myself "nah, that can't be her, I'm in Philly and I think she's been traveling abroad, what are the chances that it's really her" so I don't speak.  Then on the plane I see her again on, so I just decided to call her name and it was actually my student and I actually winded up sitting beside her mother on the plane who remembered me from when I taught her.  And the story continues...as I arrive in Raleigh, I see one of my current students who seemed so excited to see me (you know students are always excited when they see you outside of school).  I was just as excited to see both of them.  As I headed home, I had a smile on my face, seeing my former & current student was the icing on my ASCA conference cake.  Hope to see you next year in Orlando!