Connecting networks. The Tutor/Mentor Conferences 1994-2015

I started connecting with other people beyond Chicago via letters, telephone, and the traditional media during the 1980s and by email and on-line list serves in the 1990s.  The first Tutor/Mentor Connection web site was built for me by the brother of one of my tutoring program volunteers in 1997 and a new version was built by another one of our volunteers in 1998, then rebuilt again in 2006 by a team from IUPUI. That site hosted the Tutor/Mentor library, which I moved to the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site in 2019.

I began participating in email list discussions around 1995 and have continued for nearly 30 years. Through this I have grown my connections and commitments to on-line learning, network-building, mapping and collaboration, even though many of the people who have the money to fund my work are not yet using the Internet the same way.

I started participating in cMOOCs that connect people and ideas in on-line, open and on-going efforts in the early 2000s.  In 2004 we hosted our first eConference, in partnership with IUPUI.  We repeated these in 2005 and 2006, in the same time frames as we hosted face-to-face conferences in Chicago.  

I joined a "connected learning MOOC" (#clmooc) in 2013 which encourages participants to learn new ideas and share what they are learning on blogs, and different social media platforms.  I've stayed connected to participants from that group since then. A few have become financial supporters of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.

In 2016, as a result of participating in this type of learning for several years, I posted a conference history story map on the Tutor/Mentor Exchange site after seeing a similar map done by someone else.

Click here to see my version.

I shared this link with #clmooc friends via Twitter and Terry Elliott, who I've written about before (see story), put my presentation on YouTube and added music to it. You can see it below.



Every time I or someone else posts an article related to the mission of the  Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, my hope is that others will do what Terry did, and what student interns have done often between 2006 and 2015, and create their own versions and interpretations, which they share with their own network.

One group of people who played an important role during the late 2000s, who I've not featured often enough, were the Northwestern University graduates who served one year fellowships with my organization.  

I asked each one to write a blog, chronicling their experiences, starting with day one, and ending with a final reflection.  The first was Nicole White, who joined us in the summer of 2007. After her fellowship year we were able to employ her in 2008 and 2009 as a full-time Tutor/Mentor Connection coordinator, with a grant from the Lawyers Lend-a-Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Foundation.  

Since this article is about the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences, I encourage you to visit Nicole's blog and scroll through the articles she wrote about the five conferences that she was part of.  

You can read the blogs of Nicole and our three other Northwestern University fellows (Chris Warren, Bradley Troast and Karina Walker) on this site, and you can meet other interns from various colleges on that blog, too.

I hope you'll take time to view these.  Making sense of what we're doing, or trying to do, is an on-going challenge. Blogs written by staff, students and volunteers add a deeper perspective to the work we do and hopefully motivate donors to not only support us, but to support other programs, in other places, who are doing similar work, AND, telling their stories via blog articles.

Furthermore, they enable leaders and volunteers from different programs to see our strategies and borrow ideas that they might put into their own programs.  Learning from each other has been the goal of my networking and web library since the 1970s.

I've put together a concept map that aggregates links to blogs of people who have helped amplify and shape the ideas I've been sharing.  I'd like to be adding others. Just send me a link to any stories you create.

While I've not had the funds to host a Tutor/Mentor Conference since 2015, I'm still connecting people and ideas to help youth tutor, mentor and learning programs grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago and other cities.

This photo was taken in 1994 during the second full year of creating the Cabrini Connections program in Chicago.  It shares a vision of adults and kids connecting in on-going programs that I continue to spread through this blog, my website, email newsletter and social media.

I hope you'll connect with me. Share your own stories and links to your blog and visual essays. Visit this page to see where you can find me on social media.

Finally, I hope you'll consider a contribution to help fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.  Visit this page for information.