Vance Stevens, Webheads leader. A giant no longer with us.

As I scrolled through my email this morning I received tragic news of the passing of Vance Stevens.  

Most of you probably don't know who he was.  I met him in the early 2000s via an on-line community called Webheads, which connected ESL educators from around the world.  

Vance was the glue that brought that community together in the late 1990s and held it together for 20+ years.

If you view some of these past articles, you can see many of my interactions with Vance and the way he archived those interactions on his on blog.   Below is a screenshot from an article he wrote in 2019 following the 21th year on-line reunion of some Webheads members. 

As with many people who I've met on-line and grown relationships with over many years, I only met Vance once, which was a few years ago when he was in Chicago for an event.  I treasure that memory and the way he always made me welcome, even though I'm not an ESL educator. 

I encourage you to visit Vance's Facebook page and read the testimonials that have been posted as people are learning of his passing.   Here's one post that provides links to many archives that will enable you to learn who Vance was and what he accomplished. 

I often wonder if my own work and archives will remain available to people in the future.  I ask the same question when I think of the much larger body of work that represents the life of Vance Stevens.

A few weeks ago I wrote about using the Internet Archive to find posts which have broken links.  Here's a  link in the archive to the post Vance wrote in 2019 following our reunion.  As long as the archive is available, so will the legacy of Vance Stevens.  

12-6-2022 update - a memorial to Vance Stevens was held on ZOOM - watch it here
In the video a PDF tribute to Vance was mentioned - It's in the Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language - open the pdf from this page. 

Looking back 21 years - Webheads and Tutor/Mentor Connection

My wife complains that "I never throw anything away."  She's right. I'm a collector. We sold our house this spring and had to down-size. It was terribly painful for me.

This habit is especially true when it comes to the information I've learned from leading a volunteer based tutor/mentor program in Chicago for 35 years and from trying to help fill city neighborhoods with well-organized programs for the past 25 years.

This graphic is one of the first that I created in the early 1990s to show the type of information I was gathering and sharing - initially via print newsletters.  The challenge that I've always had (of many) is finding ways to help other people find and use the information I've been collecting.

It's not a challenge that is unique to myself.

Yesterday I joined in an on-line reunion, celebrating 21 years of a group called Webheads in Action.

Three original Writing for Webheads members, Vance Stevens, Michael Coghlan and Felix Zaniboni, convened in Zoom for a 21 year reunion. It started at 7:AM Chicago time, but late in the evening for the others. I joined in late.

Vance has been the prime mover in this group since it's beginning, so he created a blog article and posted it today, to recap the conversation.  I show the heading below, but am not going to try to recap all of the detailed information that Vance put in the blog, which recapped what was shared in the on-line session. 

Read Vance Stevens' Learning2Gether blog from 9-8-19

I really, really, really hope some of you will open the link and read Vance's article.  Look at how he is pointing to Webheads events from as early as 1998.  He's been generous in using the space to show how I've connected to Webheads since the early 2000s and shows one of the interviews he and I did together.  You can view the video on YouTube.

Innovation, creativity - cMap

What Vance is doing is showing people his collection of Webheads history, and in doing so, he's sharing ideas that I and others contributed during our interactions over the past 21 years.

At the right is a cMap showing one of four sections of the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute web library, which I started putting on-line in 1998. I'd been collecting some of this information as hard-copy publications since the 1970s.

Here's a screenshot of that section of the library.

Collaboration, innovation, knowledge management, mapping - click here

There are 443 links divided into six sub-sections.  Yesterday I finished opening every one of those links, checking to see if they still work, updating broken links and refreshing myself on why I added them to the library in the first place.

As I did this I shared some of the links on Twitter. Here's an example:

In the #tutor #mentor library I point to many sites which are also libraries hosting large amounts of information. This is one. It's a periodic table of visualization methods. Have fun with it. https://t.co/gYbV8uMFg3 pic.twitter.com/FWbeQdKBDO

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) September 9, 2019

If you search @tutormentorteam on Twitter and scroll through my past Tweets you'll find many examples.  If you read Vance's blog, you'll see that he's doing the same thing in the way that he pointed at my Tweet about yesterday's event.

If you look at the graphic at the right, Vance, and myself, are the people in the middle, hosting information libraries and spending time on a regular basis helping other people find and use that information. I've been trying to teach others to take this role for many years.

Below is a cMap that illustrates some success.  I created this a few years ago to point to places where other people were writing about work I'm doing, to help facilitate understanding among a larger network of people.  Vance Stevens is one of the nodes on this map and I added a link to his blog.  Many people who I've met via the #clmooc group are also included, as are interns who worked with me from 2006 to 2015.

Connecting with others - open links on each node 

Many of my blog articles are pointing to the past in an effort to share information people can use to shape a brighter future for kids and families.  If you browse the list of articles in the cMap above (click here) you'll find many that talk about learning, network building, collaboration, etc. Most put the responsibility on the learner to do the walking and to create new content that does the sharing.

Want another example of what I'm talking about and asking you to do?  Take a look at this Tweet.

Love it! A whole family joining the #YangGang family. https://t.co/rsYl2IhAw5

— Steve Marchand (@marchandsteve) September 8, 2019

For the past month or so I've watched a growing number of people take turns sharing the ideas of Andrew Yang on Twitter, using #YangGang as one of their hashtags.  He and his campaign team have created content which they share via books and on his web site, and a growing number of others are creating new content to share these ideas.

Imagine being able to get kids and volunteers from multiple youth programs connected to each other in long-term communities like Webheads.  Then imagine them sharing their stories and talking about what it takes to build and sustain a long-term tutor/mentor program, using the same enthusiasm and frequency that #YangGang members are doing.

Would that result in more well-organized, long-term programs reaching k-16 youth in high poverty areas all over the country - or the world?

That's the goal. If you've read this, write about it. Share it. Create a video.

And, if you're able, send me a contribution, click here, to help me fund this work.  

Creating Learning Communities - Test Your Motivation

I learned more than 30 years ago that one person could not provide all the information that 100 volunteers who grew up in neighborhoods outside of Chicago's Cabrini-Green area needed to know to understand the challenges kids living in such neighborhoods face nor all that they needed to know to become effective tutors/mentors.

At least not in the traditional teacher-to-learner role.

Thus, I began to try to create a learning community, where volunteer, students, parents and other stakeholders would spend their own time reading, reflecting and learning from information I was collecting and sharing with them on a weekly basis. To understand what I mean by a "learning community" read some of the blog articles I share in this link.

This was in the mid 1970s, far earlier than when I began to learn about the power of the Internet.

For the past 30 years I've attempted to engage volunteers, board members, donors, youth, etc. in the Chicago tutor/mentor programs I've led in an on-going learning process. The information I now share on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC site, this blog and other web sites I host all originated from my efforts to support the youth and volunteers who were meeting weekly at a small tutor/mentor program in Chicago.

What I've learned from this process is how difficult it is to engage busy volunteers and under-motivated young people in this effort. Thus, I'm constantly spending time in my own learning, looking for experts who seem to have mastered this process better than I.

On Sunday I spent an hour in an on-line forum with Vance Stevens who is an ESL educator based in Abu Dhabi. I've gotten to know Vance since we were first connected back in 2004. In Sunday's presentation Vance showed a process of student engagement that I think could be duplicated in schools, non-school organizations, faith groups,etc. in many places. You can view the slides and the presentation here.

I'm writing as the Democratic Presidential Convention is taking place. During last week's Republican Convention and again this week as the Democrats meet, there will be all sorts of claims made that fact-checkers will be testing to determine how far the truth has been stretched. In reading some of the commentary about the campaign fact-distortion one of the fears I sense is that too few people will actually care enough to go to the fact-checking sites to see what is being posted and too few will spend time learning about the issues and building their own personal involvement in providing solutions that government really can't provide very well, not matter how much money is spent.

That brings me back to tutoring/mentoring. Below is a map created using the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator that I launched in 2008. It's intended to support leaders from business, religion, education, politics who want to reduce violence by helping young people have more positive learning, mentoring and job development opportunities during the non-school hours and through the public schools in the neighborhood.

This map is of little use if no one looks at it, or if no one spends time reading other articles I've posted, and in reflecting, discussing, then building strategies that support existing programs already in this neighborhood while creating new ones where they are needed. I wrote about this same neighborhood in 2010 - see article.

Here's the test. Are you still reading? Did you visit Vance Stephens' site and review his presentation. If so, you are an active learner. We need more people taking this role, including young people.

Here's a PDF I created showing how young people could be involved in community information collection. Here's one showing how they can become journalists, telling stories the media do not tell. Here's one showing how young people can be leaders drawing people together to look at this information.

This presentation (click here) was done in just a few days by an intern from Illinois Institute of Technology, who is a college student from Korea.

Are you still following me? Volunteers, educators and/or staff in youth programs could be applying the concepts Vance Stevens has shared to teach young people in many neighborhoods to do research, reflect on what they read, then communicate their ideas in many formats. Read some of the articles about knowledge management, creativity and innovation posted at this link.

If this type of engaged learning becomes part of the on-going curriculum in many schools and non-school programs, we can grow a generation of young people who are more motivated to be active learners and who will use this process to engage others in community problem solving.

Visit the Chicago Program Links library and browse the list of youth organizations in the region. Find one that is convenient for you to join and reach out to offer your time and talent to organize a learning process like this. As volunteers teach young people to engage in on-going learning they are also teaching themselves.

That's the best thing about being a volunteer in a tutor/mentor program. Your life can be transformed as you work to transform the life of a young person.

If you don't have anyone collecting and sharing ideas like this in your own community I'd be happy to help you. You don't need to start from scratch. Most of the information that I share can already be applied to your own circumstances.

Network Building - A Process

This graphic and this article describe a process of network-building that I've been doing informally and formally since I started leading a tutor/mentor program in 1975.

Below are a couple of message threads that illustrate this long-term process. The first is an email received from Vance Stevens last Monday after I had facilitated an on-line Webheads discussion on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012.

Thanks to Dan Bassill for his remarkable presentation yesterday. I found Dan's work to be very similar to that of Webheads except that his is much more focused on a tangible social goal. But both are exemplary attempts at bringing social media to bear on scaling our efforts beyond our immediate circles of those we can reach directly.

I posted the archive here:
http://learning2gether.net/2012/02/27/dan-bassill-and-the-tutormentor-connection-in/

You can find the recording here: from Blackboard Collaborate(Elluminate)
http://tinyurl.com/2012feb26bassill
Thanks also to Ali Boumousa, Dave Weksler, and Indrit who joined us from Montreal, New Jersey, and Doha, respectively.

Then, today I received this message from John Hibbs

Hi Dan: You may or may not remember me by way of our talks about you being a presenter during Global Learn Day - I don't recall the
"Voyage Number - Seven? Eight? Six? In any event, though not an English language instructor, I am one of Webheads biggest fans; and like you, have "unlimited" respect for the work of Vance Stevens.

The two of your are truly remarkable people. By copy of this to Vance, I want to thank him and webheads for putting you on their stage last Sunday.

(I missed it but listened to the podcast, reviewed your web site, and like all that I saw and heard.) Congratulations!!!!!

I am now deeply involved in "Healthy Oceans" as per
http://oceanrights.org. In fact, in a couple of days I will amend my "Plan" to include mention of your network and the model it offers.

When I make that post, I will send the URL. You might peek at the elements of the Plan here http://www.oceanrights.org/the-plan/

Very short version here
http://www.oceanrights.org/archives/2347/

Anyway this is simply to shake your hand in admiration and respect and sent in the hope we can find ways to work together. There may be more important issues than preserving and protecting the Ocean, but I am not sure what that would be. ...(although teaching ESL is pretty darn important too.)

Kind regards,

John Hibbs
http://oceanrights.org

I was introduced to John and Vance nearly 10 years ago and as I build my network with them they connect me to their networks. I'm honored by the praise both John and Vance offer and I'm equally impressed by their work.

I hope readers will follow the links and get involved with one or all of us.

Volunteer Recruitment Discussion, Sunday 8/26

I led an informal discussion about volunteer recruitment on Sunday, Aug. 26 in the Webheads Elluminate forum. The recording can be seen here. See description of this discussion on the Learning2Gether site.

This discussion was focused on learning ways educators and non profits are recruiting and utilizing volunteers as tutors and/or mentors in school and non-school programs throughout the world. Dan would like to draw information from participants. Below is a list of questions that I intended to ask:
* Where do your find volunteers?

* What are your expectations for your volunteers? Where do you share this information?

* Describe your volunteers. Are they business people, college students, community residents?

* How long do your volunteers stay involved with you? Less than a year? One or two years? More than two years?

* How do you tell your story to show volunteers how and why they should join you? If you use a web site, blog or video, please share links.

* How do you screen volunteers? What is your interview process?

* Once you have volunteers how do you train and support them?

Unfortunately, only two other people joined me in the discussion. One was Vance Stevens, who has led the Webheads network's growth since the early 1990s and who is located in Abu Dhabi. Vance and I first connected in 2004 when the Webheads group co-sponsord a tutor/mentor on-line conference while I was hosting a place-based conference in Chicago.

The second was John Hibbs, who has been hosting a Global Learn day since the late 1990s. Here's an introduction from John in the 2004 event. Here's some photos from Global Learn Day VI which I participated in from Chicago. John is now focusing on Coursera, which is a new platform for massive on-line learning that is partnering with "the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free".

Since we did not have any tutor/mentor program leaders in the discussion to give feedback on their volunteer recruiting practices we used the time to talk about ways on-line networks like Webheads or Coursera could incorporate questions like this into their own efforts, reaching thousands more potential participants than the few I'm able to bring to the conferences in Chicago or gather in my social networking spaces.

I encourage you to listen in to the one hour recording. Follow the text chat box to find questions and ideas that are being shared while I was pushing out information through the Elluminate screen. If these topics interest you, join the Tutor/Mentor Connection forum on Ning to expand your ideas of where, why volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed and how people in all sectors of society can help them grow.

Networked Learning via MOOC

Vance Stephens who is one of the creators of the Webheads network is one of the people who constantly inspires me with his thinking and writing. Today I read this article and this article.

The first article introduced me to the concept of a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)

It pointed me to this blog where a short video video gives a quick over view of what MOOC is.

Follow the other articles in this blog from one written May 28, 2011 to the most recent and you can see how a MOOC has been developing around an "e portfolio" course. You may be interested in the topic, or like me, you may be interested in the networked learning process.

The second article makes the connection between Josh Grobin, volunteerism, mentoring, and the innovative thinking of Sir. Ken Robinson, which you can see in the video below.



In sharing these links I'm trying to inspire people in Chicago and throughout the world to see that volunteer-based non-school tutor/mentor programs reaching youth in inner-city neighborhoods could provide the type of learning sparks and opportunities Robinson envisions, even when they are not provided by the local public or private school.

Since I can only reach a few people with my own articles, and there is so much information to learn if we want high-quality tutor/mentor programs to be available in most of the high poverty neighborhoods of big cities like Chicago, the ideas of a MOOC really appeals to me. It's a way to organize the information I've collected in the Tutor/Mentor Institute and share it with thousands of other learners, collaborators and experts who have their own ideas to contribute to this process.

Learn more about MOOCs. Learn more about what motivates volunteers to give more time and talent to a cause than paid workers often do on a job. Think about how these ideas intersect in a long-term process of learning, innovating and actions.

UPDATE: 8/22/2011 - This slide share by Vance Stevens provide a great deal of additional information about MOOCs and self-directed learning.

- http://www.slideshare.net/vances/meportfoliosputting-the-me-in-melearning

Imagine a MOOC timed to coincide with the November 2011 and May 2012 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences, or with the National Mentoring Month event in January.

Connecting Networks - Opening Silos

I spent time this weekend reading part of a report titled Next Generation of Community Revitalization, published by The Bridgespan Group. The report profiled initiatives that are bringing together many different partners in "collective efforts" aimed at solving complex problems.

While the report shows good work being done, the report also talked about "significant risks" and listed six.

These were:

* Funding that is largely short term
* Leaders who are overstretched, with gaps in organizational capacity
* Uneven commitment to resident engagement (community involvement?)
* Unrealistic expectations about how much can be accomplished how soon
* Limited access to what works - or shows promise of working
* Silo-ed thinking

These are issues I've written about often in the past because they are what prevents high-quality volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs from operating in more places and having a greater long-term impact.

I've collected a huge library of articles focused on process improvement, collaboration, knowledge management and innovation, but until more people know about the library and are using it, it has minimal value.

I've also pointed to articles by Vance Stevens and others who are hosting massive on-going learning communities focused on specific topics. I'd like to find partners who would help build a community that focuses on volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring program growth in big cities like Chicago.

How do outsiders become "insiders"? How do we get ideas into silos? Who else is talking about this?

I did a webnar with the Webheads group yesterday and one participant pointed me to this site, where there are dozens of concept maps illustrating ideas. Browsing through these takes me to the web site where the map is further explained.

Today I tried to find some links to groups connecting networks. One was the Cumbria Third Sector Initiative which is where I found the graphic used above.

However, my Google search also pointed me to a page full of "images". As I browsed through these the "pictures" of some resonated with me more than others, and as I clicked into those, I found new web sites and organizations working to connect networks.

Now there are literally thousands of graphics that I could search through, and I don't have the time to do that all by myself.

However, there are also thousands of people concerned about the issues that The Bridgespan Group report is focusing on. That means many people could be working together to build a library of organizations that are trying to bring people together and do more to overcome the challenges facing non profits and social entrepreneurs working to solve complex problems.

If you're interested in this, search the graphics yourself. If you find some new organizations connecting networks or trying to break down silos, why not write about them in your own blog and send me a link.

Learning2Gether: Recruiting Volunteers Podcast

With this comment, Vance Stevens of the Webheads group announced that the Podcast from the August 26 discussion on volunteer recruitment is now available for others to listen.

Dan Bassill does some remarkable work bringing his past business experience and present passion for improving the lives of disadvantaged kids in Chicago through his tutor mentor programs, and the mechanisms he sets up for that are interesting, instructive, and relevant to communities of practice which rely on the cognitive surplus of like-minded volunteers.

Find the link at http://learning2gether.net/2012/08/27/dan-bassill-discusses-ways-educators-and-non/

Making Sense of Info. Using it to solve problems.

One of the first things most people say after talking to me, or visiting my web sites is "there's a lot of information!" Some are really saying "too much" information. That's not the way I see it.

Instead I see a constantly expanding wealth of information that young people and adults can learn from over a lifetime in efforts to reduce poverty in the US and the world. The map below shows the different sections of my library. The actual link is here. So how do I see this?
My library points to people from around the world who are brighter than me, better writers, and better able to visualize ideas. By hosting links to these ideas in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC library, I make these ideas available to anyone who visits my site and browses the links.

I created this explanation of the four-part Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC strategy yesterday in preparation for an on-line discussion scheduled for April 15.

The first part focuses on aggregating information. The second part focuses on advertising and network building, intending to increase the number who view this information. The third part focuses on facilitating and helping people understand and use this information.

A few months ago I pointed to some blog articles written by Vance Stevens, where he introduced the idea of MOOCs (Massive Online Organized Curriculum). Today I read an article by Steven Downes, which shows the potential and challenges of MOOCs.

I'm trying to take this a step, maybe many steps, further.

First, by aggregating information about non-school tutor/mentor programs in Chicago I'm inviting others to help make sense of this information. By using maps to show all poverty areas in the region, and concept maps to visualize ideas and strategies, I'm trying to focus people on strategies that build the entire system of supports, not just a few good programs in a few places. How many programs are there? What is the availability of programs in different poverty neighborhoods, based on type of program, age group served, size, etc? How do programs differ from each other? What do they have in common? What are their challenges?

How can a collective effort including business, faith groups, political leaders, etc. help overcome the challenges and make more and better programs available in more places?

Second, I'm trying to find people who will help bring people in Chicago and the world together in a MOOC focused on building a shared understanding of the information represented by the 2000+ links in my library. Instead of focusing on reading, writing, math that we want kids to learn I'm focusing on problem solving skills and knowledge that young people and adults can use throughout their lives to close the gaps between rich and poor in Chicago and other cities.

Finally, I'm trying to find people who are already doing this who want to add me to their team, and people with the talent needed to do this 'sense-making' and organize a MOOC along with other forms of mentoring and learning. In the book titled The StarFish and the Spider, decentralized organizations were described, along with platforms that enabled millions of people to connect with each other.

Many people need to be owners and contributors to this process, not just me. Many places can be hosting these ideas, not just my web site. As long as we are connected in one, or many, systems of navigation, learners can find their way through the library and find places to support their own learning and problem solving.

As a result of better understanding of poverty and how other people are working in different parts of the world to close the gaps, along with a better understanding of the revenue systems that need to support on-going efforts in many places, more people will begin to use the maps and information library available through platforms like the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, to search out places where they can offer time, talent, dollars, and their own growing knowledge. That's the fourth step in the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC strategy.

Over the past 20 years I've done much work to build the platform, aggregate information, and build a network of people and ideas. Over the next 10 years I hope to find investors, benefactors, partners who will turn this into a MOOC and a constantly expanding network of people and organizations working in many ways to help share these ideas.

ESL/EFL resources from Webheads network

I've been following a group of ESL (English as Second Language) educators from around the world for over 10 years. The group is called Webheads and it's open to any who want to follow and/or engage.

Last week one member asked if others could offer a list of recommended resources and the list below was submitted.  I'm sharing it since many of these resources could be useful to tutors, mentors and educators working with other learners.

General

http://www.linguahouse.com/
http://breakingnewsenglish.com/
http://www.theteacherscorner.net/
http://esl.about.com/
http://www.scoop.it/t/great-esl-sites-for-teachers
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teaching-adults
EAP Materials:- http://www.uefap.com/materials/matfram.htm 

Pronunciation

http://hancockmcdonald.com/materials/67
http://www.adrianunderhill.com/#

Materials to Use in Class
http://www.handoutsonline.com/index.php

Games
http://eslgamesworld.com/

Video 

http://www.eslvideo.com/
Real English: http://www.real-english.com/

EdPuzzle - http://edpuzzle.com

Portal
http://eflclassroom.com/

The primary facilitator of this group is Vance Stevens, located in Abu Dhabi. This image is from a 2012 session where I shared some of the Tutor/Mentor Connection strategies with the group.

http://learning2gether.net
http://adVancEducation.blogspot.com
http://vancesdiveblogs.blogspot.com

I'll add additional links to this as they are suggested and will add this web page to my web library, rather than adding each of the individual links.