How to use this blog

I've been writing this blog as part of a strategy launched in 1993 to help kids living in high poverty areas have access to well-organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs that operate in the non-school  hours.

I have hosted a list of Chicago and national volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs on my website since 1993, with the goal that each program will learn ways to constantly improve by learning from others, and donors, policy-makers, businesses and others will use the website to help programs grow in all areas where they are needed.

The graphic below is a question I've tried to ask myself, and others, with my blog articles.  "How can we do this better?"

The articles are intended for program leaders, volunteers, policy makers, resource providers, business, volunteers and virtually anyone who is concerned about poverty, inequality, workforce development and/or democracy.

search on Google for "tutor mentor" and any of these words.

This graphic shows the tags on the left side of the blog, with the larger size type representing more articles with that tag. This was created in 2016 so there are a few more categories in the tag list now, but if you browse the list you'll find them.  Just open any of the tags, then scroll through the articles.

As a short cut to help you find a few articles that provide a broad overview of what I'm writing about, visit this Tumblr site, where I've archived about 20 articles pulled from this blog.

I don't expect anyone to read every article in a day, or a year. However, if you follow current articles and browse past articles from time-to-time you'll begin to understand the ideas I'm sharing and hopefully, you'll want to share them via your own blog, meetings, social media, etc.

Thanks for reading.  As we move further through 2025 the challenges of building and sustaining volunteer-based tutor/mentor and learning programs reaching k-12 youth in high poverty areas will grow as the competition for funding gets more severe, due to cuts in Federal funding. 

Finding ideas that work for some people in some places which can be applied by other people in many places is a potentially winning strategy.

I hope you'll connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, etc. (see links here). Share your own resource libraries and blog links. Help guide more people through this information. 

If you value this work please visit this page and use the PayPal button to send me some financial support to help fund this work.  

April 1st. No joke this year.

I often look at articles I wrote in the past for inspiration. Today I looked at an article I wrote on March 31, 2019.  I'm posting the full article below.  It's still relevant.

However, some things have changed since then.

First, the day after I wrote my 2019 article I was hit by a car and suffered a fractured leg and shoulder. I was in a wheel chair for the next 4 months. 

Covid-19 had not yet hit. That came a year later. In April 2020 after the lock-downs began, I wrote this article.  We're still suffering from Covid and now face new epidemics with a Federal government that is cutting research and has an anti-vaccine stance. 

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz did not win the November 2024 election so this article that I wrote about Governor Walz's interest in mapping probably does not apply to anyone in the new administration. 

In 2023 I wrote this article about information-based problem solving. I don't expect anyone in the current administration to apply this thinking but those looking to save our democracy, and our planet, sure could use these ideas.  

So, here's what I wrote on March 31, 2019:

Monday is April 1, which for many, means it's a day of practical jokes.  For me, it's a new week, of a new month, and new opportunities.

Here's the goal:

While the planning for the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago was done 1993 it was launched in January 1994 with a survey to identify every non-school, volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago.  Using maps we began to plot their location, in an effort to determine what neighborhoods were well served, and which needed more programs.

We published the list of programs in a printed directory in the 1990s and on the internet since 2004, along with a growing library of links to web sites that provided information about where and why these programs were needed, and how to build great non profits, to support great youth programs.

For the past 25 years every week has started with efforts to draw attention to this information, and motivate leaders in every sector, to take roles in building and sustaining constantly improving programs, which work to help kids succeed in school, stay safe in non-school hours, and move toward high school graduation, post high school education, then jobs and careers.

The graphic at the top of this page was used in this article.  It's one of more than 1,000 posted on this blog since 2005.

I want you to read them all, and use the ideas to do more to help kids living in poverty.

That's no April Fools joke.

Of course, I don't expect anyone to do this in a day, but it could be done over a year, or two.  Maybe not by many people, but hopefully by a few who will adopt the strategy and intermediary role I've piloted for the past 25 years so that more people try to make this happen.

Tipping Point-role of universities

Actually, I doubt that many will make an effort to read even a few of my past articles, let alone all of them. That's why I've tried to enlist teachers in high schools and colleges, to make this part of a learning curriculum, that youth start looking at when they are in middle school, and are still looking at as they finish college. I posted this article with that goal last week.

Do you think that's a joke?  Kids as young as one or two years old are reading Bible stories. Many do this for their entire lives. Why can't we enlist people in reading material that helps them create a better life for people who are alive now, rather than in an afterlife?

If the type of learning I've described were happening some would be well prepared to be leaders of mentor-rich youth programs while many others would be prepared to take on the critically important role of building the resource flow and supply chains, that enable programs to grow from good, to great, and then to stay great for many years.

I've been trying to make this vision come true for over 20 years, but so far no one has embraced it. Maybe people think I'm just joking.  Like every day is April 1st.

SunTimes, Oct 15, 1998

Except, it's not a joke. Every week we read about some kids being shot in Chicago. At the right is the front page of the Chicago SunTimes, from October 15, 1992.  This was when I was in the process of forming Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

The headline of "7-Year Old's Death in Cabrini Requires Action" has been a constant reminder of the commitment I made then and continue to try to keep in 2019.

It's a commitment that many need to make, and keep.

I hope you'll think about this as you enjoy your week.

--- end 2019 article ---

Much has changed since 2019 and some problems seem much more urgent now than building systems of support for kids living in high poverty areas. 

I included this graphic in a 2022 article with the headline "Kids not living in high poverty need mentors, too."  

If we don't build systems that help all kids become learners, creative-problem solvers and active leaders, we're doomed to giving our country, and our future, to a small group of ultra wealthy who want to take us back to the dark ages when monarchs ruled by decree and most people had few rights. 

In my 2019 article I wrote, "Kids as young as one or two years old are reading Bible stories. Many do this for their entire lives."  Sadly, this is one reason we have something called PROJECT 2025 and why millions of America have joined a cult that elected the current President and resulted in his selling of America to the highest bidder. 

Information-based problem solving is intended to provide ideas to support your efforts to solve problems like this. Finding the time and motivation to dig into this is just one more problem. 

Thanks for reading.  The problems we face are no April Fools Day joke.

If you appreciate what I'm writing, please visit this page and make a contribution. 

Blogging4Life - Part 3

At the beginning of March I was encouraged by #clmooc educator friends to write about "Why I Started Blogging", based on a set of questions they had answered on their own blogs.  My first article is here, and my second is here. 

Today I'll answer the final questions. 

How do you write your posts?

I'm firmly committed to the idea that "a picture is worth a thousand words" so I have embedded graphics in most of my posts since late 2006 (and in my printed newsletters going back to 1993). 

The graphic below illustrates the role I take when I write a blog article, and that I encourage others to duplicate. I'm the YOU in this picture. 

I'm pointing people who read my blog to the library of information I've aggregated for decades, which includes maps showing where volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed, and where existing programs are located, along with a broad range of research showing why programs are needed and other problems that also need to be solved at the same time.  The goal is that people start conversations, using the library and the maps, which lead to more strategic and on-going support of one, or more, youth-serving programs in different parts of their community. 

Since my blogging is part of an on-going effort to increase visibility for tutor/mentor programs and draw volunteers and donors to them, many of my posts from 2005 to 2015 were created to draw attention to events hosted by my organization. 

The graphic below visualizes how quarterly events, repeated annually, and shared by more people leads to a growing pool of resources helping youth programs grow in many places.

Many of these were the May and November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences that we hosted in Chicago every six months from May 1994 to May 2015. Many were fundraising events of the Cabrini Connections program that I led from November 1992 until mid 2011.

Most followed the school year, so in August/September my articles focused on a Chicago-wide tutor/mentor volunteer recruitment campaign that we launched in 1995. In November while I focused on bringing people together for the conference, I was also focused on motivating donors to seek out programs to fund with year-end giving. In January I focused on National Mentoring Month and in February I focused on helping programs recruit new volunteers to replace those who had dropped out over the year-end holidays. In March and April I started focusing on planning for the coming school year and in May I focused on the year end conference, our year-end dinner, and celebrations of what we accomplished. 

Thus I always had something to write about. 

In between the quarterly events I wrote articles following news stories and current events, publication of new research, or actions leaders were taking that needed to do more to help kids.

A major source of articles was a "Rest of the Story" strategy developed in the 1990s to draw attention to youth tutor/mentor programs in high poverty areas following media stories that featured incidents of violence or reports on poorly performing public schools and/or street gangs.  Here's one article that illustrates this. 

You can find many more examples if you view articles tagged "violence" and "media".

I describe the "Rest of the Story" strategy in this PDF essay. 

In the past few years I’ve found inspiration in articles I wrote in earlier years which I often republished with updates. In addition, as I’ve digitized my paper files I’ve posted a few letters and articles from the past on my blog. Much of what I wrote 15 or 20 years ago is as relevant today as it was then. 

This article is an example of that. 

Since launching the blog I’ve liberally embedded links in my articles. This was a great strategy and I still use it, but over time, it has created a deep rabbit hole (as Terry Elliott would call it), that draws people deeper and deeper from one article to another. The result is “too much information”. Another is “too many broken links”.

Here’s an article I wrote in 2012 about “too much information” 

Here’s an article titled “navigation information overload”. 

I continue to write the blog and embed links with the goal that “a few” people will dig deep and they will share the information in byte-size formats with others. That’s my goal of getting students from middle school, high school and college involved as learners, creators and information facilitators.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

For the past decade I’ve tried to write one or two articles a week. I think in earlier years I might have posted more frequently, and with shorter articles. In the past few years I’ve posted less frequently on the MappingforJustice and Intern blogs. There’s no particular time of day.

Do you normally publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit?

Most often I let the article simmer for a few hours, or overnight. Sometimes I publish immediately. In the early years I think I almost always published immediately.

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

I can’t think of any single post that I’d call my “favorite”. One that I value is this one, where I share links to all of my content. Since I’ve used TinyURL.com to shorten links, I created this originally so I’d be able to repeat the same short link rather than create a new one every time.  

A few years ago my #clmooc friend Terry Elliott introduced me to Wakalet. I’ve used it since then to share some of my favorite blog articles. And I’ve used my blog articles to point to my Wakalet collections. Skim these articles for examples. 

I put tags on my articles to help sort them into categories. An example of that is the Wakelet collection of articles, which you could find among the tags on the left side of my blog. 

There are a few sets of articles I hope people will view. I've positioned these at the top of the list of tags at the left.  These show my goal of having people build “A New Tutor/Mentor Connection” while understanding the history, vision and strategies of the T/MC and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.

You can find links to these collections in this article along with a video that we shared at the 1997 President's Summit for America's Future, where the Tutor/Mentor Connection was one of 50 'teaching examples'.  

A few other articles that you might look at:

- If I could present ideas to CEOs, what would I share. click here
- Funding Challenges facing youth serving organizations  - click here 
- A new way of attracting philanthropic support. Web evangelism - click here 

What embarrasses you most on your blog? Too many typos.

While I proofread, I still miss “its” and “it’s” and “there” and “their” and words that don’t have the final letter. Often when I’m looking at a past article and using it for a current one, I find these typos. Ugh.

I’m sure it has hurt my credibility.

Any future plans for the blog? Keep on writing.

I'm 78 now and facing health issues that may keep me from reaching 90.  I'll keep writing as long as I can, and continue looking for others to carry my work and ideas into the future.

Since 2005 I've posted 2,298 articles on this blog which have recorded 1,858,447 views.

I keep writing with the belief that everyone gets up in the morning and puts their pants on, one leg at a time. Everyone who has Internet access looks on-line for news, entertainment and information.  That means, someone, some place, is going to take time to read this and other articles and say, "I want to help."  

Now, I want them to say, "I want to share these ideas with more people in more places."  And, "I want to teach what Dan has learned over the past 50 years, and taken time to archive so others can learn from it."

Here’s an article that compares what I'm trying to motivate people to do to what faith groups and formal education have been doing for many years.  Here's another article, with the same idea. 

Who will participate next? 
Has Terry Elliott written a #Blogging4Life post yet? 

Thanks for reading this and other articles that I've posted. Please apply the ideas in your own efforts to create a better world.

I can be found on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and still on Twitter.  See links on this page. 

This isn't Substack or GoFundMe, but I depend on contributions to pay the bills. Visit this page if you can help. 

Mapping ideas, information and networks

Last week I found two visualizations that really excited me. They were created using Kumu.io software.

The first was this presentation, showing the 2023 Women's World Cup teams and players, created by Morgan Wills.  I show one of the views below.

Morgan writes, "This visualization allows for an interactive exploration of players in the FIFA 2023 Women's World Cup. Who were the top ranked? Who was in what position on what squad? What is the distribution of ages? Who were the strongest passers, and can we see that according to position? The buttons on the map of players allow you to explore all these things and more for all players in the 2023 World Cup!"

The second presentation, created by Deniz Cem Önduygu, explores the History of Western Philosophy. He wrote in this explanation, "I concluded that there should be a global and systematic way to see all the agreement (similarity, expansion) and disagreement (contrast, refutation) relationships between philosophers and their ideas."

Deniz had been collecting this information for more than 10 years before he discovered Kumu.io as a way to share it. 

Open both presentations and explore the way information is shared.  These are powerful examples of tools like Kumu.io.

For a long time I've been troubled by one thought. How do I connect the people I know, and have interacted with often over the past 30 years, with each other?

I was introduced to social network analysis tools in the late 2000s through the work of Valdis Krebs. He spoke at our Tutor/Mentor conference in 2009 and then donated his Org.net software. In 2010 he did a workshop for three interns who had volunteered to help me. This Ning group was set up to support their work. This blog was one outcome. It shows participation in the 2009-10 Tutor/Mentor Conferences and is an example of what I hoped would be done on an on-going basis. 

In 2011 I did some network analysis work myself, using tools that looked at my LinkedIn and Facebook groups. This presentation shows maps created in that process, like the one above that shows my Facebook network. Connecting people across these clusters with each other has been my goal for a long time.

So I've had a long commitment to network analysis as a way to help people understand who was in my network and help them connect with each other. But I've never had the money to hire anyone to do this work consistently and I've not had the time to learn and do it myself.

That does not mean I've not used concept maps for a long time to visualize information I've been collecting and sharing.  Below is a map of my library.  It's one of many concept maps that I've created using cMapTools that you can view on this page. 

So how do I motivate some visual scientists to spend time converting my concept maps to interactive formats like Kumu, then recording them on YouTube so more people see and use them?

Maybe this is a possibility.

In February 2024 I wrote this article, after watching the annual National Football League "Honors" show.  

As I looked at the many posts about athletes supporting mentoring, and the NFL Honors videos showing athletes supporting many different efforts in their communities, I wondered if anyone had tried to create a web library, and/or concept map, building lists of athletes/celebrities from every sport, focused on specific issues.

I wrote, "Why collect this? To learn from each other and improve work being done.

This should be a no-brainer for sports professionals. Coaches are constantly learning from each other. They have libraries of film that they study to spur innovation and constant improvement."

In my preparation for writing this article I reviewed many articles that I posted in past years.  I found many great examples of network mapping and use of Kumu, as well as how I had been trying to collect and share information for the past 30 years.  Rather than list all of these in this article, I created the concept map shown below to point to some of those resources.

If you explore this map you'll find many examples of using KUMU to support network building and systems thinking.  You'll also see the influence of others, such as Gene Bellinger, who I met around 2011 in a LinkedIn Systems Thinking group.   If you dig through articles I've posted on this blog since 2005 you'll find many more.

What if someone (s) like Deniz Cem Önduygu or Morgan Wills adopted my library and archives and created visualizations to help people find and use the information they contain?  The History of Western Philosophy project is an example of how information in libraries can be shared.  Other projects, such as the work of Morgan Willis, show how people in networks can be identified. That's the first step in building connections.  Interns from various colleges did this type of work for me between 2005 and 2015, but not as on-going, long-term projects.

What if a major donor put up the money to establish a Tutor/Mentor Connection study program at one or more universities, where students learned to do this type of visualization work and the on-going communication needed to motivate more people to view the information and use it.

That's why I write articles like this.

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll share this in your networks and connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, Twitter and other platforms (see links here).

And, I invite you to visit this page and help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. 

Blogging4Life - Part 2

Last week I posted this article, showing "Why I Started Blogging" which was inspired by educator friends whom I've met over the past 12 years.

Today I'll answer two additional questions.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why do you use it?

I started my blog on Blogger.com in 2005 and continue to use it today. It is easy for me to use and because it has an archive of images, I’m able to write new articles using images I added in the past.  

I'm also able to find all of my past articles using the Internet Archive.  That means in the future, others will still be able to find what I've written, even if Blogger.com shuts down.  Of course, I suspect most of the links I point to will no longer work. 

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Yes. Many. 

I started networking on the Ning.com platform in 2007 when it was free and did a great job of connecting networks.  One of the first groups I joined was Classroom2.0, a place for educators to share ideas.  Here's the first article I posted there, in 2007.

Then, in 2007 I created a TutorMentorConnection.ning.com site.  Each member has a blog and I've used it since then, even though it changed its format and is less valuable from a networking perspective than originally.  This link points to blogs posted on the site, by myself and others. 

I launched a Tutor/Mentor Exchange blog on Wordpress in 2016. My original goal was to focus more on the broader information-based problem solving strategies that are at the heart of the strategies I share. However, I’ve not used it often in the past few years. 

I have a Tutor/Mentor Connection blog on Tumblr that pulls from my Wordpress blog -  I also have a Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC page on Tumblr.com where I share articles from my main blog.

I have also posted a few times on Medium 

In addition, I've posted guest articles in several places. In 2015 I poste five articles on the I-Open blog, serving Cleveland, Ohio. These are all archives now. Here's one. 

I've asked interns and staff who worked for me to write blogs showing what they were doing and what they were learning.  The graphic below is part of a network analysis project done in 2012 by two interns from South Korea, via IIT in Chicago, showing the growth of the Ning network since 2007.  This article on the T/MC Intern blog shows that work. 

From 2007 to 2011 we employed Northwestern University graduates through their Public Interest Program. I asked each to blog their experiences and you can find those on this site. 

The Intern blog, also hosted on Blogger.com, was created in 2007 by Michael Tam, an intern from Hong Kong. Here's a post of his from August 2006 that shows what he was learning.  If you read posts by other interns you'll see similar experiences. 

While we started creating map stories using donated ESRI software in 1994 I never had the money to hire anyone to build maps consistently until late 2007 when an anonymous donor gave $50,000 to rebuild the mapping capacity.  We hired Mike Trakan and he began the MappingforJustice blog (also on Blogger.com) in January 2008. Here is his first post. 

If you read Mike's 2008 to 2010 articles you can see many maps created using ESRI software. You can also see how he guided the efforts of a team from India who built an interactive, map-based, Tutor/Mentor Program Locator for us in 2008-9. This article is an example. 

Mike created so many map stories that I asked him to build a site that served as a "map gallery".  The image at the right shows what he built. It's now an archive, but can be seen here.

Since 2011 I've been writing article on the mapping blog. Some were stories created using the Program Locator, such as this one.  Most have showed how others are using maps to tell stories, such as this article. 

When we  created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 we also were launching a new site-based tutor/mentor program to help 7th and 8th graders move through high school. We called it Cabrini Connections and I led it until mid 2011.

I encouraged staff, students and volunteers at Cabrini Connections and the T/MC to also write blogs. Thus, if you visit cabriniblog.blogspot.com you can read blog articles posted by myself and our tutor/mentor program staff leaders between 2006 and 2011, as well as by students and leaders of our technology, arts, writing and video clubs. 

Here's an article from the Tech Club, showing how students and volunteers entered a team in the Cabrini Madness fund raising event. The Tech Club was led by Mike Trakan, our GIS mapping expert.  

The Cabrini Blog and our student and intern blogs were also hosted on Blogger.com.  

That's it for today.  What I've shown in the first two Blogging4Life posts is a long-term commitment to using blogs to share information and influence the actions of others. I keep urging others to do the same and offer my articles as inspiration for what they might write. 

I'll post one final article next week in this Blogging4Life series.  

I hope you are inspired to create your own blog and use it to influence change and well-being in the world. It's a medium you can control.  

Let's connect on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Mastodon or other social media platforms. See links here.

Furthermore, if you're able and willing, please help me pay the bills. Visit this page and help fund my work. 

 

STEM and Networks. Share These Resources.

Last week I participated in two webinars of interest. 

One was titled “State of STEM Ecosystems”. Visit this site for the video and a written summary of the ideas that were shared by panel members.

Then, visit this page on the STEM Learning Ecosystems website to view the resources they share.  

One other resource on the site that I want to draw your attention to is the map I show below. Open the link then click into any of the dots on the map and dig deep into work being done in each community in the network. It's extensive!

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time you have seen how much I value the use of maps. When I look at the STEM Learning Ecosystem map I ask, “How are these communities sharing ideas across the network, and within their own cities?” I also ask, “Do they have maps/directories that point parents, volunteers and donors to STEM programs in their communities?”  Are they educating donors to use maps to find STEM and other youth development programs to support?  How are they drawing attention to their libraries? 

The second webinar was titled, “Exploring Multiscalar Networks” with June Holley. 

It was hosted by Socialroots as part of the Network Coordination Commons. 

The full video from this webinar can be found at this link.  A shorter, 30 minute summary video is at this link.  And, slides from June Holley's presentation can be found on this page.  The three images shown in the graphic above are from June's slide deck.   Here's another review of June's presentation. 

Visit June's LinkedIn page and review her history.  She's been weaving networks for more than 40 years.  She created Network Weaver in 2018 to offer Network Weavers a hub of free information and resources to support their systems change endeavors. Beginning in 2021, Leadership Learning Community has managed Network Weaver in partnership with One Sphere, Ltd. Their vision is to empower network leadership as a catalyst for racial equity and justice, driving collective liberation through interconnected networks.

I’ve followed June Holley since the mid 2000s, but we’ve never connected in support of work either of us was doing.  Maybe it's due to her focus on helping networks grow and my more narrow focus on helping economically disadvantaged youth via long-term tutor/mentor programs.  You can read some of my articles about ecosystems here.   I've only learned about the STEM Learning Ecosystem recently. 

One of the STEM webinar panel members was Dr. Stephanie Rodriguez – Director of the STEMM Opportunity Alliance. During her presentation she shared the graphic below, showing questions that need to be asked and answered in each of these communities and across the entire ecosystem.

I watched the introduction to the STEMM Opportunity Alliance in 2022 and wrote this article, showing strategies that can be used to build STEMM learning programs in more places.  The ideas are as valid now as they were then.

The facilitator of the STEM webinar, ended with this question: "What will be our legacy in 10 years?"  

I was asked a similar question in 2014 and wrote this article, showing where I hoped the tutor/mentor ecosystem would be in 5, 10 and 15 years. 

In 2014 I wrote the following. I think these goals could apply to the STEM Ecosystem, too:

* In five years, the map of the Chicago region should show a growing density of needed youth and family services in areas where they are needed. These programs should have web sites that show what they are trying to do, and what they are accomplishing, using this Shoppers Guide as a checklist. 

* In ten years, the map should show an even greater density of programs in areas of need. Web sites of programs operating in 2014 and started over the next five years, should begin to show participation history, and stories of youth and volunteers who have been part of these programs and who now are further toward graduation and jobs. Programs started between 2019 and 2025 would show the same start-up information as programs starting in the first five years. 

* In 15 years the density of programs should reach all areas of need, and web sites of programs in place now should show a number of stories about alumni who have gone through the program and who are now adults who are working, raising families, and in some cases, providing support for the growth of the programs that were part of their lives as young people. If this strategy is supported consistently for the next 15 years, by donors, volunteers, media, business, etc. we should begin to see significant changes of where poverty is concentrated because there should be less in places where well organized programs are helping youth grow up, move through school, and find jobs. 

It’s 2025.  We are not close to achieving these goals. Maybe 2040?

One of the member communities is the South Side STEM  Opportunity Learning Landscape, which I wrote about in this 2023 article.  This is the direct link to their site. 

Then, this week I saw a report titled, “INCREASING STEM ENGAGEMENT THROUGH OPPORTUNITY LANDSCAPING” (on this page)

This paper on Opportunity Landscaping, co-authored by Nichole Pinkard, with Sheena E., Caitlin K. Martin, Yolanda J. Majors, PhD, & Natasha Smith-Walker, explores how we can better understand and design learning ecosystems to ensure equitable access to STEM and out-of-school learning opportunities. An example of this work is the Chicago South Side STEM Opportunity Landscape.

This information is all related.  Ideally, each community on the STEM Learning Ecosystem map would have a similar landscaping strategy in place, and would be constantly sharing what works, what doesn't, and what help is needed with others in the network.  Ideally, networks in each STEM community would be connecting with other youth development networks in the same community. 

This may already be happening. Is it? 

The sites I point to in this article aggregate information that can be used by members of their ecosystems and networks.  June Holley's presentation asks, "How do we connect across networks, to create "networks of networks".  I keep asking the same questions.

If you read my "Why do I blog" article you'll see my 2005 article, showing my goal of  creating a blogging space that links to the T/MC web sites, so that as people talk about tutoring/mentoring, we can use maps, charts and other web links to show them where, why and how they can be involved. 

As I listened to these two webinars I ask, "Where are people sharing these ideas in on-line conversations?  

I’ve shared my ideas and website with these networks for many years, but finding a place to interact has been difficult. I’m not part of the “in group” and never have been. That’s been a challenge since I started leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago in 1975 while holding a full time retail advertising job with the Montgomery Ward corporation.

I post ideas here, and share links in my library, with the goal that a few people will see them and take them into these networks.  I put links to the STEM Learning Ecosystem in this section of my library and the Network Building resources in this section. I shared these in the webinar.

They area available to anyone in the world.  

Please share these resources. Help STEM programs grow in more places and help people in more places connect with ideas they can use to solve complex problems facing this planet.

Thanks for reading.  I look forward to connecting with you on LinkedIn, Mastodon, BlueSky, Insatragram, Facebook and even Twitter. 

Blogging4Life: Why I Started Blogging

A few of my #clmooc friends have created posts showing why they blog and invited me to add my own history.  I invite you to read posts by Kevin, Sarah and Sheri to see where I'm getting my inspiration. 

Like Kevin, I'm going to break this into a few posts, with the first one probably the longest.

Why did you start blogging in the first place? 

Creating and writing this blog, starting in April 2005, was an extension of the public awareness strategy which I’d launched in 1993 when I and six other volunteers created a new tutor/mentor program in Chicago, to serve teens in one neighborhood, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, to help similar programs reach k-12 youth in every high poverty area of Chicago. 

Sample graphic from Tutor/Mentor blog articles

The goal of every article is visualized with the graphic shown above.  "How can we do this better?"  How do we get more people involved in helping kids in high poverty areas move safely through school and into adult lives, with jobs and careers that enable them to raise their own kids free of poverty, and from the scourge of systemic racism.

The habit of blogging has deeper roots, extending to my 17 years working in retail advertising for the Montgomery Ward retail store corporation from 1973 to 1990. Every ad we wrote was a ‘mini blog’ providing information to millions of potential customers. 

When I started leading a tutor/mentor program in 1975, as a volunteer, I created weekly newsletters to provide volunteers with ideas and tips and news about upcoming events that they were to share with their students. Each of these is an early version of what I have been trying to do with my blog articles. This link points to the April 1986 issue shown at the right.  

From 1993 to 2002 my primary communication to the world was through printed newsletters that I sent three to four times each year. In 1993 the mailing list was around 400. It grew each year and was close to 14,000 by 2003 when we stopped sending these due to rising costs and lack of funding. 

We created two versions of this. One focused on our own tutor/mentor program, as well as the T/MC. The other focused on the T/MC and other programs in Chicago and around the country, with just a small mention of our own program.

In each printed newsletter I included a “President’s Message”. That was an early form of blogging for me. At the left is the editorial from my Jan-Feb 1997 newsletter.  On this page you can find links to many of my past printed newsletters. 

We switched to weekly email newsletters in the early 2000s. Unfortunately, only a fraction of the people in our print mail database transferred over to the email list. Unless they have searched the Internet for "tutor mentor" and found my website and blogs, we've lost contact. 

As with the print newsletters, each email newsletter ended with a “President’s Message”.  You can read many of these in this section of my archive.    

By 1995 I was beginning to share ideas on Internet forums, such as the VOC-Net (Vocational Education Discussion List), Digital Divide, After School Network, SAC-List at University of Illinois, and MOTT School-Age list. I also connected on a list hosted by the Australian Student Traineeship Foundation.

Then around 2000 I started hosting planning conversations on Yahoo Groups.  My rational was that using the Internet I could reach hundreds of people every day, whereas in face-to-face meeting I might only meet with one or two people a day, at the most. 

The goal was to get more and more people involved, helping the program I was leading, and helping every other program operating in the Chicago region. My library now points to youth serving programs in all parts of the USA and many parts of the world. They all need help.

We recruited a professional public relations firm, Public Communications, Inc.,  in 1993 to help us develop the Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy and implement the public awareness part of it. This led to me hosting tutor/mentor conferences every six months from May 1994 to May 2015, publishing a printed Directory of tutor/mentor programs, and organizing Chicagoland Tutor/Mentor Volunteer Recruitment Campaigns each August/Sept from 1995 to 2003. 

Our PR partner fed information to the media each time we hosted an event, which resulted in numerous print, radio and TV stories. You can see many on this page.  

We launched a “Rest of the Story” strategy in 1994 to follow negative news with map-stories showing where the incident took place and any tutor/mentor programs operating in the area. Many of the articles in the Tutor/Mentor blog are part of the “Rest of the Story” strategy. Here’s an example. 

Along with this I began to write “letters to the Editor” which were often published in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times and other media. I shared some of these in this article.

However, more often than not, my letters were not published. 

Volunteers from my Chicago tutor/mentor program built my first Tutor/Mentor Connection websites, in 1996, then again in 1998, which demonstrates how workplace volunteers who first begin as one-on-one tutors and mentors often go beyond, and help the program, and the students, in other ways. 

I posted my maps and information and lists of programs on those sites. I pointed to them in my on-line listserv conversations.

As I learned about blogging I saw a way to by-pass media gatekeepers who only chose to print my letters occasionally.

I felt that with a blog I could share my ideas and draw attention to the tutor/mentor program I led, and to events I was organizing, more consistently than through traditional media.

So, I launched this blog.

In my first article, published in April 2005, I wrote:

I've been taking a look at the blogging community in the past week and feel that this is a great format for creating on-going dialog about volunteering, community service, civic engagement and tutoring/mentoring. Most blogs only connect to other bloggers. I'm looking to create a blogging space that links to the T/MC web sites, so that as people talk about tutoring/mentoring, we can use maps, charts and other web links to show them where, why and how they can be involved. If we can create a space for this on a T/MC web site we can be a hub for bloggers throughout the world to connect, link, and increase awareness of the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the work we do.

In a couple of months it will be the 20 year anniversary of this blog.  Over the next two weeks I'll address some of the other questions shown on Sarah, Kevin and Sherri's blogs. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit some of my past articles and use them as starting points for your own. In particular, look at the #clmooc articles to see how I've connected with this group since 2013.  They have been a tremendous source of inspiration and support.  

Thanks for reading.  I hope this encourages you to write your own blog, and use it to focus on drawing people to ideas they can use to help solve problems that need the efforts of many people, over many years.

My second Blogging4Life article is here. My third is here. Read them all and follow the links!

I'm on BlueSky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I hope you'll connect and boost my posts.  

I also hope a few readers will visit this page and make contributions to help me continue to do this work.