Learning from Internet Libraries

In different parts of the country local and state government are beginning to restrict what can be taught in schools and what books can be included in libraries.  This is a terrible trend.  It's also useless...if parents, mentors, tutors and educators are helping youth learn to use Internet libraries on a regular basis.

I led a tutor/mentor program from 1975 to 2011.  In the 1980s volunteers set up our first computer lab. In the late1990s volunteers from Microsoft set up a computer lab when we moved to a new location on Huron Street in Chicago.

In the 1980s we did not know about the Internet.  It the late 1990s we were just beginning to learn about the Internet. I was an early adopter, spending many hours connecting with people from around the world via list serves hosted by the Mott Foundation, Digital Divide Network and a distance learning group in Australia.

Thus in the mid 2000s I created this concept map to show my vision of teaching students and volunteers (and donors) to use our websites to get and give information and to connect with each other. 

Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection, formed in 1993, I had been building an on-line library of reading materials since the late 1990s. By the late 2000s we had more than 1500 links.  One section focused on Black History and another focused on race and poverty.  

Above is a screenshot showing a few of the articles in the Black History section.  I keep adding to this all the time. For instance, today I added a site called "AntiRacist APUSH", which is a curriculum for teaching antiracist history.  

The big challenge in the  mid 2000s and today is teaching students and adults that these libraries exist and motivating them to spend time visiting and learning what they include...then digging deeper in an on-going personal learning journey, that can be self-guided, or facilitated by peers or adult mentors and tutors. 

Here's what we tried in 2008-09. 

Visit this blog and read about the "Cool Cash" program. See its rules and how our technology coordinator launched a learning quest each week with his blog article, then shared comments students had posted in our on-line Student-Volunteer History & Tracking (SVHATS) system (no longer available). 

Unfortunately we were not able to continue this program after 2009 since the financial crisis cut our funding and led to staff reductions and ultimately to me leaving the program in mid 2011.  Leaders who followed me did not have the same vision or commitment.

Yet, the need to inspire students to build on-line learning habits is more crucial today than in the past.  

Below is how an educator from Massachusetts, Kevin Hodgson, is motivating his students into on-line learning.

Visit Kevin's blog and view this video.  See how he has embedded video clips in each of the boxes on this graphic.  Scroll through past articles and look at all the ideas Kevin shares.  

While our Cool Cash program only lasted two years, the Tutor/Mentor Connection part of our organization hosted a parallel learning journey for interns who joined us between 2005 and 2015. 

The concept map below highlights some of the projects created by interns as they spent time learning about the goals and strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (led by Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC since 2011)

Browse through the Intern blog, started in 2006, and see all the ways students from various colleges and universities did learning, then shared what they learned.  

Projects like this can be created by educators, parents, students, volunteers in tutor/mentor programs, from any place, to help students develop their own Personal Learning Network (PLN).  If you're not familiar with this term here's one article you might read.  It's a link in this section of the Tutor/Mentor library. 

I used the word ENOUGH in the mid 2000s to urge people to develop their own personal learning strategy to learn more about problems we face, and ways some people are solving them, to help innovate solutions they could apply in their own lives and communities.

You can see this in this article. 

It's never to late to start learning or to start helping young people develop Internet learning habits.  As we head into February Black History Month, use the links in my library to expand your knowledge of American History.

Thank you for reading.  Please share these posts and connect with me on one of these social media platforms.

If you can spare a dime, consider a contribution to the Fund T/MI campaign and help me continue this work in 2023. 

 

Annotation as social learning

 Today I saw this post by my #clmooc friend Terry Elliott, a college professor from Western Kentucky. In it he's sharing a video that shows students in his college class how to use Hypothes.is to annotate a class syllabus document.  I encourage you to take a look.

Check out this video I recorded via @loom. It is an intro to our Blackboard version of https://t.co/AX44fmZcXr . Dandy even with the echo of roosters in the background. https://t.co/iEirZqzH9Y #e100ewku #hypothes.is

— Terry Elliott (@telliowkuwp) August 21, 2020

I learned about annotation a few years ago from Terry and Kevin Hodgson, another #clmooc educator.  I shared some of my thoughts in a few blog articles which I encourage you to read.

At the site-based tutor/mentor programs that I led in Chicago from 1975 to 2011 we began to add computers in the 1980s and continued to update this capacity in following years.

As the photo at the left shows, this normally led to students and volunteers surrounding a computer, to do various forms of engagement.

Since Covid19 closed schools and non-school program sites in March this face-to-face interaction has almost ceased, or has been severely limited.

In fact, this photo might be from any home in America, where the adult is a parent or older sibling, helping younger students or peers with on-line learning.

With ZOOM and other video conferencing those kids could be looking at a screen with fellow students and/or volunteer tutors and/or mentors.  I see stories from many programs showing that that has been happening over the past few months.

I'm sure it will continue, and grow, the longer students are prevented from attending classes at schools or non-school program sites.

So why not use Hypothes.is and do shared reading, via remote learning.  Students and volunteers could each be looking at the same document, and highlighting and annotating, just as Terry shows in his video.  Using video conferencing they could not only be writing and adding thoughts in the margins, but they could be talking to each other, asking questions, and reading what each other is saying.

Above you can see a screen shot from one of my blog articles, which I've highlighted to illustrate annotation in action. Visit this in this blog article, and find a link to an annotated version in Hypothes.is where you cab add your own comments.

Below I point to an article I wrote showing how some Chicago youth programs are adopting e-learning strategies. I'd love to write a story in the future showing uses of annotation in e-learning.

How are Chicago youth programs pivoting to e-Learning?
I posted this article a few weeks ago to share some stories showing how Chicago youth programs were adopting e-learning strategies. I updated it today to add this article from Midtown Educational Foundation. 

Reminder.  If you'd like to share how your organization is dealing with Covid-19, read this blog article and contact GrowthWorks directly. 

Thanks for reading. If you'd like to help me fund the work I do, click here and use PayPal to send a contribution. 

Examples of Remote Learning

Over the past few months school and non-school programs have had to move their activities on-line and it's been a struggle and learning experience for almost everyone, including students. That will likely continue into the fall. Below I point to two videos where two groups from Chicago are describing their on-line work this summer.

Lyric Opera Empower Youth Program

Lyric Opera - ChiHackNight

Last week's ChiHackNight featured a presentation by Crystal Coats and Angela Hamilton, who lead a creative Empower Youth program at the Lyric Opera.  Their presentation begins at the 9 minute mark of this video.

As I listened to Crystal and Angela I could feel the passion they have for supporting the teens in their program and in my mind visualized a map of the Chicago region with icons in every neighborhood representing people like them working with youth.

Project SyncERE - video

Project SYNcERE  - link - virtual programming in engineering education.  At the right is the MyChiMyFuture webinar featuring Project SYNcERE.  In it you can hear Jason Colemen and Emily Constantian describe the challenges they faced this spring as they moved their learning on-line and find examples that you might include in your own efforts.


You can also find discussions of remote learning on Twitter.  Below is a Tweet from a #RemoteLearning conversation.

With #RemoteLearning, #K12 educators and students need to connect and “engage in exciting learning opportunities,” says @EileenBelastock. https://t.co/bTdZqAEkyC

— EdTech K–12 Magazine (@EdTech_K12) July 23, 2020

While the two examples above show how Chicago non-school youth programs are reaching student learners, they also are models that I hope others are learning from. If you search Twitter or other social media, you'll find similar presentations from other organizations, and possibly some people who are aggregating these, making them easier to find.

Shaping EDU

Last week my friend Paul Signorelli, who I met through the ETMOOC in 2013, posted this article, describing a week long summer camp "that will convene a global community of education changemakers to push the creative envelope for how we serve students and advance learner success." This was hosted by the Shaping EDU program at Arizona State University.   While the live event is over, the archived videos are still available.

ACT Holistic Framework

In another conversation from last week, an Acacia Fraternity brother who I met recently on LinkedIN sent me a link to the ACT Holistic Framework page.

The graphic at the left is from a short video that I found on the home page. It's one of many animations in the video that visualize the birth-to-work learning needed to help youth prepare for adult lives and future jobs and careers. I encourage you to visit the site and view these videos.  It's a vision many need to share.

my birth to work graphic

At the right is my own "mentoring kids to careers" graphic, which I've been using since the 1990s.  It's not nearly as creative nor is it animated, but it focuses on the same need for a pipeline of age-level supports that need to be consistently available to kids in every high poverty neighborhood.

While the first two videos show ways to engage youth and adults, the second two links that I point to are intended to engage adults in an on-going conversation aimed at creating better learning opportunities for kids in every zip code, rich and poor, that help them build the skills and habits that the ACT Holistic Framework communicates in such a creative fashion.

Learning circles

I aggregate links to these articles in my web library and share them via this blog, my email newsletter and social media, to encourage others to use them in their own on-going learning.

That's the idea shared in the graphic at the left, created by an intern from South Korea about 8 years ago.  Learning circles consisting of people who share common backgrounds, the same geography, and/or the same goals, need to be digging into these knowledge libraries on a regular basis.

If you think of all of the information in my library, blog and websites as SCRIPTURE, then there should be big and small groups all over the world digging into this information every week.

If you think of it as CURRICULUM for a PhD in HELPING KIDS, then it's content that you need to read, review, and then discuss with others.

knowledge networkers needed

Today my journey through Twitter led me to this article, talking of ways companies can get employees and customers engaged with the United Nations' Global Sustainability Goals (SDGs).

The graphic from the Tweet below was also in my Twitter feed today.

Exploring the role of knowledge networks in creating new knowledge and not just sharing existing knowledge - @KhalidiAlmadani continues to evolve his own thinking, weaving together many different ideas https://t.co/cORyJQHSNX

— John Hagel (@jhagel) July 27, 2020

This article talks about the role of "knowledge networks".  That's what I've been describing for many years and supporting with the library of ideas I've been sharing on this blog and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website.

Goal: Helping kids through school

In the pre #covid19 days we talked about school and non-school learning opportunities. Now we need  to add virtual, where learning is open 24 hours a day. 

However, the goals remain the same. We need to innovate ways to create and sustain more and better learning opportunities for ALL kids living in poverty and kids with disabilities. 

If you take time to look at any of this, thank you.  If you take time to share what you're looking at, with a Tweet, a blog article or a video, you've become part of this knowledge network. 

Share your ideas with me on one of these social media platforms. Let's see if we can help make the world a better place for everyone.

8-21-2020 update - Read how Midtown Achievement Center boys and girls programs engaged students in summer e-learning.  click here

For those interested in helping fund my work, please visit this page and use PayPal to send a contribution. 

Engaging youth during Covid19 time at home

this graphic from
Genius Hour post

Earlier this week my #clmooc friend Sherri Edwards, a retired educator from Washington State, shared a link to an article titled "How You Can Support Genius Hour at Home".  I took a look and found it to be a creative way to engage student learners. So I'm sharing it.

In my email I received a message from a 10th grade student at Walter Peyton High School in Chicago. In response to Covid19, he and other 10th grade students have created Connect Chicago, "as a place to build friendships, supplement learning for CPS students, and improve the daily lives of those in need during a time of difficulty."

I agreed to help draw attention to their site, which I'm doing with this article, and my May 2020 email newsletter.

Open links under each
graphic - click here

As I learned about the student group at Walter Peyton I sent back an invitation, which I've also given multiple times to the #clmooc network of educators, and others, to engage students in learning the Tutor/Mentor Connection 4-part problem solving strategy and apply the process through their own actions.

At the right is a cMap I created to show some of the projects student interns have done in the past, which should be starting points to inspire what future students might do.

I shared this invitation last week, in this article.


Over the past few weeks I've seen dozens of articles showing how Covid19 has a greater negative impact on low-income people and people of color.  Here are just a few:

From The Economist: 4/27/2020 Closing schools for covid-19 does lifelong harm and widens inequality

From the World Bank: 4/15/2020  Poverty and Distributional Impacts of COVID-19: Potential Channels of Impact and Mitigating Policies

Human Rights Watch: 3/19/2020 US: Address Impact of Covid-19 on Poor

From Forbes: 3/29/2020 - 3 Ways Low-Income People Will Feel Heavy Impact Of Covid-19 Aftershocks

From the Shriver Center for Poverty Law: 3/23/2020 COVID-19 – Crisis Advocacy for Systemic Change

From Policy Link: 4/29/2020 - COVID-19 and Race Commentary

Anyone can do a web search and find dozens of similar articles. 

I've been aggregating articles that show inequality, racism and poverty in Chicago and America for many years in this section of the Tutor/Mentor library in an effort to make  it easier for people to find this type of information.

Description of 4-part strategy

Step 1 of the 4-part strategy that I've followed since 1993 involves collecting information and making it available to others.

Step 2 focuses on building greater daily public awareness so a growing number of people look at this information. Step 3 involves helping people understand the information in the library and learn how to apply it through their own actions.

Step 4 is the result of the first three steps. People apply the information in specific  places in a long-term effort to help kids move from poverty to jobs and lives beyond the negative grasps of poverty.

Students could be aggregating links to articles showing the negative impact Covid19 has on people in high poverty areas, then could be creating their own projects to share their understanding of the problem with others.

Look at ways students might communicate what they learn. click here

If you read the Genius Hour article imagine  how ever step could be applied to learning more about poverty, inequality and race issues in America and the world and actions each student could be taking throughout their lifetime to reduce these problems.  Think of how my 4-part strategy might align with the steps shown on the Genius Hour article.

Find your passion.
start here

There are other issues that students might research. I created the graphic at the right a few years ago to show how some of these issues are presented in the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and others show up on my race-poverty map.

None will be solved in a short time. All require the on-going and growing involvement of people throughout the world.  What better time to begin that journey than now when kids are not in school and educators and parents are looking for ideas to ignite their passion for on-line learning.

The more students read about the problems, look at work done by other students, and think through how they would communicate this through their own work, the more some will build a deep commitment to solving these programs and a life-long commitment to doing the work.

Connect people who can help
to places where help is needed.

What I add to this process is an on-going role of connecting people who can help (resource providers, volunteers, media, etc) to the information base, then directly to places where help is needed, using maps to assure a distribution to all places, not just a few high profile places.  This vision reduces the role of the "middleman" in deciding "who gets help" and increased the responsibility for resource providers to educate themselves and choose who to help, based on what they learn, and what a service organization shares on their website. 

I hope that many will use the articles on my blog and web sites as starting points and will share with me work that they and their students are doing. I'd be happy to talk with anyone about this idea.  Connect with me on one of these social media sites. 

4/30/2020 update - here's article from Denver Post Hispanic students disproportionately lack internet access. The problem is not limited to Chicago. click here

As we look at problems, look at paths to solutions, too.

5/3/2020 - How to Create Real Lasting Change After Covid-19 - RSA article. click here

5/3/2020 - Design for human and planetary health: a transdisciplinary approach to sustainability - click here (as you read this think of how this thinking might begin to be learned by kids, as early as elementary school)

5/3/2020 - The High Schooler Who Became a COVID-19 Watchdog - Fead about the high school  junior who recognized the Covid19 crisis in December 2019 and built a web site to aggregate information.  This is EXACTLY the type of student initiative and talent I think needs to be inspired and released in schools across the world.  click here to read article

3/23/2021 update - "Helpful education resources to teach students about the pandemic" from Educational Technology and Mobile Learning website.  click here

Using concept maps in planning path past Covid19

A week ago I wrote this article, about an on-line conversation that I was part of. We tried to do another last Friday, but I could not get my mic and video to work, so on Saturday morning I used a different computer and even with a couple of glitches, was able to share information about using concept maps to create a visual  understanding of complex problems along with visual blueprints showing work needed to reach solutions.

Here's the presentation:



During this hour long chat with Valerie F. Leonard I was able to talk through the ideas I shared in this blog article.

Any can be the YOU in this graphic,

Toward the end of the session I pointed to this graphic, emphasizing the need for some people to view the video, then to write their own interpretation and share it with friends, family, co-workers, etc.

When those people do the same the ideas spread and reach more people.

Covid19 has revealed the ugly reality of poverty and inequality. Only when more people get involved in trying to understand the problem, and how other people have already been trying to solve it, can we get enough people involved to support needed solutions in all the places where maps show concentrations of poverty.

Thanks Valerie Leonard of NonProfit Utopia for bringing me into this conversation and helping me share these ideas.

Reaching out to Universities - A Virtual Learning Opportunity

With colleges and k-12 schools closed across America, and the world, educators and parents are struggling to find motivating on-line learning activities.  Well, I've been sharing such an activity for more than 20 years. Maybe desperation will be the fuel for inspiration.

On-line learning

Below is an invitation I wrote in 2016.  As you read this (I hope) think of how students can work individually, or in teams, to learn what the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute has been trying to do since 1993. 

What am I talking about?
Look at this blog, started in 2006 by Michael Tam, an intern from Hong Kong. Browse articles since then and meet all the different interns who have spent time at a computer, learning about the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute, then sharing what they are learning through videos, animations, visualizations and/or blog articles.

Imagine your students doing this research and communications. Imagine a page on your web site sharing what they learn. Imagine you hosting ZOOM conversations where students and community members talk about what they are learning, like I did last week with students from Roosevelt  University.  Covid19 has highlighted the poverty and inequality in our country and in the world. 

Will we just talk about it, or will you create a student learning activity that creates current and future leaders, who map where the problem is, who is working to solve it, then creates on-going, student-generated, public education that draws more needed resources into each of these areas?

So here's what I wrote in 2016:

Here's a graphic that I created a few months ago in preparation for a meeting with some students and faculty at DePaul University in Chicago.

From top to bottom it illustrates a vision of creating youth serving organizations that help urban youth move more safely and successfully through school and into jobs and careers. It compares the planning to that involved in building tall sky-scrapers, where many talents are needed, much financing is needed, and where you work from the foundation to the top floor over a period of years.

The map in the middle illustrates that there are colleges and universities in different parts of Chicago (or other cities) who are full of student, faculty and alumni talent, and serve as anchor organizations able to support the growth of long-term tutor/mentor programs in the area surrounding their universities.

The last two graphics illustrate that while it takes daily effort by many people to build and sustain one, or many, youth serving organizations, this is just one issue that people are concerned with on a daily basis.,

Thus, part of the role of student teams on universities is to mobilize leaders who will focus their talent and resources on the youth development slide of the pie, while also connecting, sharing and drawing ideas from groups working on other problems, in other places.

Universities are critically important in this process because as we move through 2016 and into future years, there still is no body of knowledge that everyone draws from to build and sustain youth serving programs in high poverty areas that last for 10-30 years and show on their web sites the impact they have had over that many years.  Imagine if there were no thousand year history supporting architecture, engineering and the building trades, but that anyone who wanted to build a building, first had to figure out what talent was needed, and had to build training programs so the talent had the skills needed to build the building. Imagine them doing this while also trying to find the funding needed to develop the talent, and spread it to all the places where tutor/mentor "buildings" were needed.

I've created a huge library of ideas and information, with links to over 2000 other web sites, who each link to many thousand of additional web sites.  Working through this information will take years of study. Universities could make this a degree-earning process and provide manpower to support organization growth at the same time. Below is a presentation that outlines my goal. If you're connected to a university, or looking to put your name on a building at your alma mater, I hope you'll make this your mission.

Forming a College-Based Tutor/Mentor Connection by Daniel F. Bassill

I've written more than 1000 articles on this blog since 2005, and tagged most of them so you can view multiple articles focused on a similar idea. The tags are listed on the left side of this article. Below that are links to other web sites that contain additional information and resources.

--- end 2016 article ---

universities in Chicago

At the right is a map of Chicago, showing poverty areas, and university locations, created in 2008 by Mike Traken, who worked at the T/MC for 3 years (until the money ran out).  My goal since starting the T/MC in 1993 was that universities in every part of the city would have T/MC strategies, focusing on the area surrounding their university.  See Mike's map & article here.

Furthermore, my vision was that these universities would actually connect and share ideas and what they were learning, so each could have a growing impact on helping end poverty in the region.  

I've posted 77 articles on this blog since 2005, focusing on universities and roles they might take. This will be number 78.  Since every big city in the world has pockets of concentrated poverty, and universities, my invitation extends to the world. 

It's 2020 and that's still my hope.

Enjoy your reading. I'll look forward to hearing from you.

PS:  I just talked with Michael Tam a few days ago on Facebook. He's living in Hong Kong and serves as a curriculum development officer in the education bureau of the government. This is an example of the long-term connections I seek to foster.

Building learning habits during COVID19

Support learning

The image at the right shows volunteers and youth in the computer lab at the tutor/mentor program I led in Chicago from 1993 to 2011.  It's relevant now because it could be a room in millions of home throughout the world, where older youth and adults mentor younger youth and help them develop habits of curiosity and life-long learning.  Could we emerge from #COVID19 with a newly motivated culture of learning, where all are serving as coaches, tutors, mentors and guides?

In 2010 a volunteer who was looking at the resources of the Tutor/Mentor Connection wrote a blog article titled "Thinking like Google", in which he compared the T/MC to Google. He wrote,

It occurred to me that this forum is essentially modeled on a similar format as Google's. Tutormentorconnection.ning.com a) looks for information, or content, and people relevant to the cause of tutoring and mentoring; b) organizes, analyzes, and archives that information for future reference; and c) utilizes those references for targeted advertising campaigns, social networking, grant-writing, and the like. Even more to the point, this forum is a way of attempting to grow the idea of tutoring and mentoring to scale, or to a point where it "tips".

I've built a huge web library and I've created a variety of PDF essays over the past 20 years that are intended to help people learn ways to support the growth of volunteer-based tutoring, mentoring and learning programs in high poverty neighborhoods. While I point to these via email newsletters and social media, I've been looking for new ways to introduce these concepts.

How about a WebQuest?  How might I motivate students and adults to take Michael's advice and begin to journey through my web library, and as they do, share what they are learning with people in their own network, so they begin their own journey through this information.

Several years ago I began to learn about WebQuest and I created an animation to introduce this concept. You can view it on YouTube

Here are a couple of other animations introducing students to a web quest.

Making a map, class assignment, animation.

Doing a web quest.

Interns were on this journey for short bursts of time every year between 2006 and 2015.  Here's a page that shows work interns have done in the past to guide people through this information.

For the past 20 years, I've been updating the links on the web library so all are working, and I keep adding new links. I also keep adding new blog articles here, here and here. Some of the articles written 10-15 years ago are as relevant today as they were then, so while it's important that you subscribe and follow new articles, it's also important that you visit the past and read some of those articles.

learning communities
focused on specific geography

Here's a visualization done by one of our past interns that illustrates the goal of supporting groups of learners in many sectors, who each look at maps to determine where youth and families need more help, and what programs are already operating in those areas.....who need constant support to constantly improve and stay available.

The links in the web library point to more than 200 youth serving programs in Chicago and others around the country. They point to research articles and to business and foundation web sites.  They represent a large ocean of ideas you can use to help programs grow, by borrowing good ideas already working in different places, rather than by starting from scratch on an on-going basis.

Most of the links in the web library point to other people's ideas, not my own. This emphasizes the purpose of the library for myself, and others. We can do more by borrowing ideas from others than from constantly starting from the beginning.

However, some links point to my own ideas, which I've communicated with illustrated presentations which you can find in my blogs, and on this page and in libraries at Scribd.com and SlideShare.

Intern projects from 2004-2015

Students from around the world could be looking at the web library, and my articles, and could be creating their own presentations to draw adults and other students from their own community into this information, and into actions that lead to the growth of more programs in more places that help kids move through school and into careers.  Visit this page and see how past interns working with me in Chicago have already been doing this.

Pages like mine could be hosted on the website of every college, high school and middle school, showing work their own students have done to visualize solutions to complex local and global problems.

If you're hosting a web library, and creating visualized articles to motivate people to visit your library and support youth serving organizations in your community, please share your links so others can learn from you. If you're interested in exploring this idea with me, let's connect on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Connecting Virtually During #Covid-19

This morning I spent about an hour in a webinar hosted by Valerie Leonard, founder of NonProfit Utopia, which seeks to support organizations in the non-profit sector.  At about the 35 minute mark of the webinar Valerie shared her screen with me and I presented some ideas that people might adopt over the next few weeks and months. Take a look at the whole recording, or just the last part.



 This webinar was focused on strategies non-profit organizations might use to struggle through the massive disruptions caused by Covid-19 and the recovery that will come at some point in the future. As I listened to the first part of the webinar and viewed Valerie's slides I wrote some notes on my notepad, which I later referred to in my segment. Here's what I wrote:

Where are you located?

First. Ask  yourself, "What is my geography"?  Create a map and put an X on it to show where you live, or where your nonprofit organization is located.  The boundary of this map could be as small as a few blocks, or as large as a Chicago Community Area, Alderman's Ward, a zip code, or section of the city.  You decide.

Then ask, "Who are peers, or other organizations, doing similar work to what I do, within this geography?"  If you are a non-school, volunteer-based tutor/mentor program, I already have created a map showing nearly 200 existing organizations.  Similar maps are being created by STEM networks, ARTS networks, and others.  Any can be used as a base map for your own individualized map.

Then ask, "Who are other  organizations in my geographic area who are resources to me?" Universities, hospitals, faith groups, businesses, consulting groups, etc. all could be shown on the map. They all share the same geography, thus should share a concern for the well-being of the people and organizations serving that region.

is there a conversation?

Next, ask, "How well am I connected to these other organizations? Are we connected on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Instagram? Are we following each other? Do we share email newsletters?"

Are we regularly sharing ideas about what works, what does not work, what are common challenges we each face? Are there ways to address these collectively, as a shared commitment, rather than trying to solve these through our singular, limited efforts?

During the next few weeks while you're home-bound would be a good time to collect this information and start reaching out to people in your geography.

Then ask, "Am I looking at a wider geography, too?" Who else in Chicago does what I do?  Do they have conversations about issues that I can join and learn from?  Are they sharing ideas that I could use to improve my own organization, or to deal better with this crisis?

Look beyond Chicago, nationally, even internationally.

Think of this as network building, starting locally, but reaching globally

The Covid-19 pandemic affects people throughout the world. Thus, there must be some who are innovating ways to help social organizations survive and even thrive during this crisis.  There must be many with ideas of how to stay connected to youth and adult clients and help them during the months when they are home-bound and isolated from each other.

There must be ways to reach out to technology companies, policy-makers and donors to make broadband internet access available in EVERY household in America, then the world.  So that everyone can be part of this conversation, not just those blessed with the technology and knowledge of how to use it.

Use my blog as a model

I finished my part of the webinar by saying every non-profit should have a website and blog where they are sharing their own ideas, and their own maps.  Any could use my blog as stimulation for their own thinking.

Furthermore, youth could be using the time they are home-bound to do this research and create blogs and/or videos where they share their own ideas.  I pointed to this Feb. 2014 article during the webinar.

I posted a Tweet yesterday pointing to the TutorMentorConnection.ning.com site that I've hosted since 2007, showing how interns working with me in Chicago did this type of research, then created graphics, videos, animations, blogs, etc. where they shared their own understanding.

If you're venturing into on-line learning you might get some ideas from how I coached interns working with me in #Chicago from 2007-2016. Look at each discussion, see how I pointed them in direction, then supported their learning. https://t.co/EPsxJgRwjs pic.twitter.com/xeFM0SKN0B

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) March 17, 2020

All non-profits have same needs.

I have been modeling this thinking and encouraging others to duplicate it for the past 25 years.  By using a map we're saying "Every neighborhood needs world-class quality youth serving programs"  Without a map resources flow to a few places, making a few good programs available to just a small fraction of the youth who need them.

I suspect this is true in other sectors, too. 

Be like Dan.

Make your voice heard.

What I've just done over the past hour is share my thinking via a blog article. You may agree, disagree, or not even look at this. 

However, I think it's something that everyone could be doing to share their own ideas about how to make the world a better place.  Maybe the "talking heads" could learn from what some of us are saying. Instead of just being an invisible body in a crowd, make your ideas known to others.

Here's a page where I show social media sites where I'm active. I encourage you to join me there and share links to your own stories.

And, here's a page where you can use PayPal to send me a contribution to help fund my time collecting and sharing this information.

Thanks again to Valerie Leonard for hosting the webinar today and stimulating my own thinking.

Learning at Home Resources

Kids can continue learning

With the CoronaVirus pandemic closing schools and non-school programs in Chicago, throughout Illinois, and in other states, parents and students are searching for sources of on-line learning, engagement and recreation.

Here's a link to the homework help section of the Tutor/Mentor Library, where I've been aggregating links for many years.  The challenge for most families is that there won't be a trained teacher, tutor or mentor to coach kids to use these resources.

One solution is for older siblings to tutor younger ones.  The other is for parents to try to learn about some of these resources. The best would be for kids to be pointed to learning sites, then figure out which ones they like best. Probably a combination.

One type of mentoring and tutoring that has been growing for the past decade is eMentoring and eTutoring, where the youth and volunteer do not meet in person, but online, in an activity that is facilitated through well-organized programs.  In this section of the tutor/mentor library I point to some eMentoring programs that I know of.

Because so many schools have suddenly closed, due to the CoronaVirus, many people are scrambling to learn how to teach on-line or to find on-line resources.  Social media is meeting that need, with many people sharing ideas, or aggregating links, to a collection of learning resources.

Here are a few Tweets in my @tutormentorteam feed today. If you search some of the #hashtags shown in these Tweets, you can see the same information as I am, and much more.

Check this out on Wakelet - Learning at home https://t.co/SnHVW42iSu via @wakelet @HeritageECS #TheTinyCouch #WEareinthistogether

— Faye Harp (@harp_faye) March 16, 2020

We have compiled a list of resources for our pupils during the school shutdown. Thanks to @MsNiamhBrady and @MaggieMGreen for the inspiration https://t.co/3uSDFzIl7Q via @wakelet

— KilmacthomasPrimary (@KilmacPrimary) March 16, 2020

Parents, if you’re looking for a FREE and easy way to keep the education train going please check out this #LearnAtHome program https://t.co/NQR6zEudZK

— Cierra Carere (@MsCThriving3s) March 16, 2020

Did you know The Resource Bank has a new Mathematics Hub? There are collections of resources for school and home available. My favourites are the Math Games, Videos & Tutorials, and DLC Blended Math Lessons by grade. https://t.co/IBiMGawRGE #OER #learning#learnathome #math pic.twitter.com/h4CbVfkcJB

— Melissa Lander (@landermrs) March 16, 2020

These are just a FEW of the MANY free virtual learning resources available!!! #learnathome #athomelearning #StayAtHome #virtuallearning #teachersofinstagram #QuarantineLife pic.twitter.com/nR76RALgpY

— A Cupcake for the Teacher (@Cupcake4Teacher) March 16, 2020

These same resources are probably being shared on Facebook, LinkedIN, Instagram and other sites. I like Twitter because you can narrow your search using a #hashtag, then scroll through Tweets you find.

For teachers looking for ideas about teaching on-line here's a list aggregated by @VanceS of the Webheads in Action community. https://t.co/MMuI2vaUfp #clmooc

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) March 15, 2020

I hope you find this useful. You can share what works by posting your own Tweet, using one or more of these hashtags.  If you point to @tutormentorteam, I'm sure to see your post.

I've been working from home most of the time since 2011, and have spent much time in on-line learning since 1998, so I'm not as inconvenienced as many are from being forced to stay at home.

I hope that this virus passes over most of us, and harms as few people as possible.  If you're able to share ideas and help others who need someone to talk with, or to help with food or other tasks, please do.  We're all in this together.

4/10/2020  update - A group from the University of Maryland has been creating a list of Covid19 visualizations, which is updated daily on this GoogleDoc.

4/10/2020 update - here's another resource to stay updated on Covid19. It's created by CrowdTangle. Open this link and see maps of various countries. Click on any map and a dashboard, similar to TweetDeck, opens for that country.

5/6/2020 update - EducatingALLLearners is another resource. click here  Hashtags where people are sharing ideas on Twitter include #TeacherReady,  #RemoteLearning, #NextGenEdu