Professional social networks as a mentoring tool

[Ken Messersmith]

Connie and I have been talking about using social networks like this one to help support future teacher and beginning teachers. I have created a social network on Ning for our current students both graduate and undergraduate but haven't found a good way to make sure everyone gets a connection.
Connie also found an article talking about involving retired teachers in a supporting role for new and future teachers.
Any ideas about how we might do something like this?

[Paddy O'Dea]

Hello Ken,

I've just been appointed as manager of a new social networking website called 'The Learning Exchange' - based in London, England. It's not up and running yet and I am pretty new to social networking sites - let alone managing them and making them come alive with eagerly chatting folk wanting to exchange ideas and good practice!

Anyway, your note about mentoring caught my eye and I shall be following the discussions very closely to see what I can learn.

The primary goal of the Learning Exchange is to attract children's services professionals of all kinds - teachers, headteachers, teaching assistants, sports coaches, social workers, family learning experts, psychologists, counsellors, people in all kinds of education roles in local authorities and so on (basically, anyone involved in developing services and extra-curricular activities or programmes in and around schools for children, young people and their families) - and to get them sharing good practice, ideas, inspiring each other .... and even mentoring each other.

When in the Fall will it be starting?
all the best
Paddy

[Daniel Bassill]

Paddy, I hope you'll connect your network to ours in Chicago via our Tutor/Mentor Connection site on Ning as well as through discussions here and in other forums.

If you open your site to participation from abroad, I'll be happy to set up an outpost with you as well. That way we can set up a knowledge-bridge spanning the Atlantic.

[Ken Messersmith]

Daniel,
As I noted in my reply to Paddy, I am beginning to wonder whether we should be developing separate networks or if we should be a node on a network like Fireside Learning.

BTW - the link in your reply to Paddy does not work for me.
Ken

[Daniel Bassill]

The link is http://www.tutormentorconnection.org


If you browse my site you'll see that in my library I have more than 1500 links, all related to each other in how they provide information people can use to help inner city kids connect with adult mentors, support, learning and other resources needed to move through school and to careers.

I feel that there are probably hundreds of sites aggregating information about education, teaching, learning, etc. but I'm not sure how many are aggregating links to these sites.

Nor am I aware of many forums who are focusing their members on their libraries, or harvesting the ideas of their members to feed and build the libraries.

The discussions here could point to such forums, and could host discussions that share the information in different libraries, and coach learners on how to find knowledge and use it, when they are looking for it.

Depending on how lively, and useful the discussions are, the site will grow, or not grow. However, it never will be the only place people go to network and share this information.

It could become the first stop for many in this process. That's my goal with the T/MC

[Ken Messersmith]

Daniel,
Are you aware of any online mentoring organizations? My students are a long way from Chicago but many would be interested in trying to make a difference in the life of an inner city child.
We have a very active mentoring organization in Nebraska that was started by Tom and Nancy Osborn, the former coach of the NU football team and his wife. This serves a need for us but it would be interesting to be able to make a multicultural experience available.
Any ideas?

[Daniel Bassill]

In my library I have links to some online, or ementoring programs.

In the conference next week one speaker will talk about some ementoring research.

In my Cabrini Connections program I'm trying to bring our kids and volunteers into an on-line community. We already coach our volunteers using on-line tools, and could enhance what we do if we borrowed more from the groups who are completely on-line. To do this our staff and leaders need to be more fluent, and committed to this.

In http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com and http://nututormentor.ning.com I'm connecting volunteers and others together in efforts to support the mentoring process. You might try to engage your kids with us through that portal and then nurture this to grow in other ways.

Some of my volunteers and one of my board members have college and NFL backgrounds, so their is a great opportunity to enlist sports leaders to help coach this process, groom future leaders, and advocate for on-going operating funds.

[Daniel Bassill]

In my library I have links to some online, or ementoring programs.

In the conference next week one speaker will talk about some ementoring research.

In my Cabrini Connections program I'm trying to bring our kids and volunteers into an on-line community. We already coach our volunteers using on-line tools, and could enhance what we do if we borrowed more from the groups who are completely on-line. To do this our staff and leaders need to be more fluent, and committed to this.

In http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com and http://nututormentor.ning.com I'm connecting volunteers and others together in efforts to support the mentoring process. You might try to engage your kids with us through that portal and then nurture this to grow in other ways.

Some of my volunteers and one of my board members have college and NFL backgrounds, so their is a great opportunity to enlist sports leaders to help coach this process, groom future leaders, and advocate for on-going operating funds.

[Daniel Bassill]

Sorry for multiple posts. This did not seem to be working yesterday.

[Paddy O'Dea]

Hi Daniel - It would be great to connect up our networks eventually. and that is what I intend doing eventually. Certainly, a 'knowledge-bridge spanning the Atlantic' - sounds pretty good to me! :-)

It'll be a while before I do make the connections on our site though, because we're still at the ground floor with its development. However, so far, I've been massively inspired by the collegial and enthusiastic exchanges that are happening at the Fireside and have been madly jotting down ideas that spin off for me! So thanks to you and all your friends for the inspiration.

I did have a look at the work you are doing in Chicago (Cabrini connections) - extremely interesting - particularly the theory of change (7 steps to success). So, at some point, if it's okay with you, I would like to link our members who are involved in running mentoring programmes for their young people to look at those steps. It seems to me that the seven steps would, if applied steadily, help make the mentoring experience bear sustainable results for young people.

I feel remiss for not replying to your original communication to me when I joined Fireside (apologies - but I did intend getting around to it!)

all the best to you.

[Ken Messersmith]

Paddy,
It appears that many of us are learning about how to use social networks in education. We already have a network of about 265 students, former students, and faculty from my university. Our goal is to develop a group of practicing teachers who can network with our future teachers. We also envision that our undergraduate students might be able to help the practicing teachers to develop and implement technology-based learning opportunities for their students. We don't know how this will develop but it is exciting to think about some of the possibilities.

This network is an excellent example and Connie has done a wonderful job of getting us all involved and providing a place where we find value. I wonder if we should be developing different networks or if we should all be nodes on a network like this. What do you think?
There is no reason that we couldn't develop this as an international network.

Let's keep in touch.

[Paddy O'Dea]

Ken, the Fireside is a network I will definitely be pointing our members to, once we have some!! :-) I'm keen to watch how the experienced teacher to newly-trained teacher e-mentoring project develops.

I want to explore the idea of mentoring between the various types of children's services professionals on the Learning Exchange in the UK - and indeed further afield: for example, mentoring between more experienced and less experienced community focused school/extended school co-ordinators, school parent advisors (that's a really big initiative rolling out across England right now), family learning leaders, out-of-school-hours activities/study support programme leaders, and so on.

As you say, the possibilities are endless and exciting. I was at a meeting of 'cluster managers' the other day [cluster managers are people who work in local authorities and help clusters of schools to develop services for children, young people and families either on or near school premises - keeping the schools open for at least from 8 to 6pm or longer as learning and care hubs in communities]. Anyway, the liveliness and excitement, innovative thinking and dedication shown in this group of people in London was staggering and I thought WOW.......... if I could get that degree of exchange and dynamic sharing happening on the Learning Exchange, I'd be a happy gal. I approached a few about the Exchange and some said, 'Oh god, I don't have time for that stuff'... so I can see I have a task ahead of me. I'm persuading a bunch of 'friendly souls' to join the network first, and then we'll do a membership drive.

Your idea about networks like the Learning Exchange being 'nodes' on a network like this is appealing to me. I mean, why reinvent wheels??! However, this being England...... and the fact that the site I'm developing is funded by the English government's Department for Children, Schools and Families, I have to do what they want me to. But... my personal feeling is that social networking websites stand or fall on the quality of their moderation - and only the best will survive. I hope I can do as terrific a job as Connie has been doing. I'm flabberghasted at what she does here frankly - it seems incredibly busy around this here 'fireside' :-)! Her friendly tone and measured style in dealing with the ideas that come in from everyone are terrific - I feel pretty lucky to have come across Fireside - Connie's a great role model for me right now.
(Thanks Connie! :-))

You guys may already have explored this site - but if you haven't check out some of what's happening in the UK at http://www.e-mentoring.co.uk/ - go to the News link and that should show you some examples.

What intrigues me about ementoring is its sheer reach. It's lovely to have a real live human being to mentor you, but having connections with people further away and in different situations has tremendous potential for widening people's personalised learning world.

Enough for now.
best to you.

[Daniel Bassill]

Paddy,

When you describe "the liveliness and excitement, innovative thinking and dedication shown in this group of people in London was staggering" you're showing why we have organized the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago every six months since 1994.

If someone in a city/state makes and effort to build and maintain a database of all of the people involved in tutoring/mentoring and related programs, and uses that to invite them to come together occasionally, some will come, and the networking will have the same "liveliness and excitement" as you've experienced. From this networking people who don't know each other will begin to learn from the people they meet. Some will begin to work together. Some will even take a role in organizing the events.

If you think of these as public education, then the gatherings can be used to attract media attention, and to educate donors, volunteers and other stakeholders. We've generated dozens of print, radio, tv and internet stories about tutoring/mentoring in Chicago since 1994 as a result of consistently organizing these events, and of organizing a volunteer mobilization event every Aug/Sept since 1995, using the same database of organizational information.

I've been doing this as a small grassroots organization with little support from the Mayor, Governor or CEO of Chicago schools. If other cities were to duplicate this, with that type of leadership support, the impact could be far more significant.