Take a Deep Dive into Artificial Intelligence with #ETMOOC2

Last night was the first ZOOM session for a collective learning event involving educators and others from around the world who are interested in exploring Artificial Intelligence and tools such as ChatGPT.  

I've seen a growing number of posts on social media about artificial intelligence and ChatGPT over the past year or so, but have not spent time learning about it.  After a February 2023 reunion of educators who connected in the 2013 ETMOOC virtual learning event a few leaders decided to organize a 'mini-MOOC', to help myself an anyone else who is interested, learn more.

The first ZOOM session was held last night (April 12). The featured speaker was Alec Couros, a professor of educational technology & media and the Director for the Centre of Teaching & Learning at the University of Regina, who was also the lead organizer of the 2013 ETMOOC. 

Alec finished his presentation with an AI generated video of him offering closing remarks.  I show that in the graphic below.

Below is the Google doc that Alec created as an outline for his presentation and as a study guide for anyone wanting to dig deeper.  

I circled a line on this page, with a link to the slides that Alec shared via ZOOM. The video of the session is available now on YouTube.

Below is another slide from Alec's slide deck showing  that people who become skilled at prompting AI tools like ChatGPT to give the information they are looking for can earn salaries of $175k to $335k.

Wow.  My son and I were driving to my doctor's appointment yesterday and he was telling me how he and his girlfriend wanted to make a lot of money. Neither has a college degree and both work at a local grocery store.  He spends a ton of time on his computers, playing video games, so I told him he should investigate the role of "prompt engineer".

The Google Doc that Alec shared has a huge set of links that could be a resource for anyone wanting to explore this potential career opportunity.  I certainly hope leaders of youth tutor/mentor programs will find ways to share this with their students.  You don't need a college degree to make a huge leap out of poverty by learning to use these AI tools.

My son said, "Don't you need to know how to code?"  Maybe. Maybe not.  Here's another slide from Alec's presentation.

Alec showed how some hand written, hard to read, instructions, led to a page of html code which produced the web page shown.  Imagine what you might create if you learned how to use AI more fluently.

That's the point. This is a journey of learning. It never stops.  The ETMOOC group are fellow travelers, learning with you, and offering help and friendship.  

I provided a link to the Google doc that Alec  used. Here's the link the the #ETMOOC2 website where you can sign  up to participate and see the weekly (every Wednesday, 8pm CST) ZOOM sessions that are scheduled.   Visit the Resources page and you'll find an extensive list of learning resources.  This will grow over the next few weeks, perhaps months and years.

Below is a Tweet from Susan Spellman, one of the #ETMOOC2 organizers. 

Join us in a C Mooc #etmooc2 pic.twitter.com/ft6pWfHtZG

— Susan Spellman Cann (@SSpellmanCann) April 11, 2023

In this she posts a graphic explaining what a cMOOC is.

Connect, learn and share.

You can follow this learning group on Twitter, just by searching for #ETMOOC2 and scrolling through the Tweets.  You can also follow on Instagram.  I recommend Twitter since that's where most people are posting.  You can also search for #ETMOOC2 on Facebook and on LinkedIn, to see posts by organizers. 

Write about it, just like I am.

During the 2013 ETMOOC participants were encouraged to share ideas via blogs and many did.  That practice continues with ETMOOC2.  This page on SMORE (which I never heard of until this week) has a list of bloggers. 

I really appreciate the work the organizers, who are shown in the slide below, and on this page.  

So, that's a wrap up from last night's first ZOOM session. You're welcome to join in and participate as much, or as little, as you want.  Or just dig into the resources and/or create your own learning circle.

Today I asked ChatGPT to write a summary of the ETMOOC2 exploration of AI. Below is the response:

As an AI language model, ChatGPT was featured in the second iteration of the Educational Technology and Media Massive Open Online Course (ETMOOC2) exploring Artificial Intelligence. The first Zoom session took place on April 12, 2023. During the session, participants discussed various topics related to AI and its implications for society, education, and communication. ChatGPT was introduced as an example of a language model that uses machine learning to generate human-like responses to text-based inputs. Participants explored the capabilities and limitations of ChatGPT and discussed the ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI in various contexts. They also discussed the potential benefits of using AI in education and the challenges of integrating AI into the classroom. Overall, the ETMOOC2 exploration of AI and ChatGPT provided a space for participants to learn about AI and its applications, and to engage in meaningful discussions about the impact of AI on society and education.

In this write up I did not point to the slides where the ethical and education questions of Artificial Intelligence were discussed, but there is a full set of articles that focus on this and the life-changing impact AI will bring.  I asked ChatGPT to describe this.  Here's the response:

During the ETMOOC2 exploration of AI and ChatGPT, participants engaged in discussions about the ethical concerns related to the use of AI in education, particularly among educators. One of the primary concerns was the potential for AI to exacerbate existing inequalities in education. For example, if AI is used to grade student assignments or to recommend courses, it may be more likely to favor students who are already performing well or who come from privileged backgrounds. Participants also discussed the ethical implications of using AI to collect and analyze student data, such as tracking student progress or behavior. There were concerns about privacy and data security, as well as the potential for biases to be introduced into the analysis of this data. Another ethical consideration was the role of educators in ensuring that AI is used in a responsible and ethical manner. Participants emphasized the need for educators to be knowledgeable about AI and its implications, and to actively engage in discussions about how AI can best be integrated into the classroom. Overall, the discussions about ethical concerns related to AI in education highlighted the importance of ensuring that AI is used in a way that benefits all students and does not perpetuate existing inequalities.

See. I'm already using it.  Take some time to browse through the links, view a couple of videos, then start testing this for yourself.  It's all there.  Dig in.  Happy learning! 

Super Bowl, Tutoring and Mentoring

Today's the big football game. It will be watched by millions of people from around the world.  I hope a few of those from every city will find, and read, this and other articles I've posted on this blog since 2005.

My friend Brian Banks, who posts on LinkedIn, sent me an article about a virtual tutoring company called Paper.  I read the article, visited the website and added it to this collection in my library.  

I led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago from 1975 to 2011 (joined as a volunteer in 1973).  I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to try to make this type of program available to more kids in high poverty areas.  

Two things stood out in the article about Paper.  

1) the $40 cost per student is paid by the school, not the family, but there are still many schools that cannot afford this cost.  (I did not find cost information on the website, such as how long the $40 fee applies. Is it for a full school year? A shorter time frame?)

2) according to the article "the biggest hurdle is 'awareness'.  If students don't know the service exists, the district buys it, and it sits on a shelf. It's not good for Paper and it's not good for the school, or the students. So building that awareness is the number one most critical thing."

Below is a graphic I've shared often on this post.  

The map in the lower left corner shows high poverty areas of Chicago. As kids grow up different events in their lives influence their learning, and their motivations to learn. This could be lack of reinforcement at home, traumatic events such as shootings, or deaths from health issues. It could be a growing awareness of poverty and racism as the youth moves from middle school to high school. It could be the change in adult support as they move from elementary school, to middle school, then high school. It could be the influence of street gangs, in their own family, and/or in their neighborhood.

These affect each youth differently, at different times.  

Open the concept map shown below and look closely at the supports kids need at each grade level as they move through school and into jobs and careers. 

I've not found a similar map for Chicago or any other city.  Nor have I found an analysis showing on a school-by-school basis, which of these supports are available.  However, at each level homework help and good teachers are needed. Thus a virtual learning option like Paper could be really valuable...if it was available, and if they knew about it.

This is where organized, non-school, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs can make a difference.

In the programs I led kids came to our site once a week throughout the school year, where they met with a primary one-on-one tutor/mentor, and connected with a variety of other volunteers and learning experiences.  View some of the yearbooks to see the range of activities and volunteers.  

Many students continued for multiple years, often with the same volunteers.  Staff and program leaders provided additional continuity.  

I would have loved to have had access to a learning tool like Paper.  Our volunteers could have coached kids to use it, when they needed extra help, solving part of the awareness problem.

In addition, since our volunteers came from many different companies in the Chicago region, and often from families with significant wealth, they could have helped raise funds for schools to afford services like Paper.

Take another look at the concept map shown above and consider the role volunteers can take to help draw needed resources to schools and families. 

A few days ago I posted an article that included a 2013 map showing participation in an Education, Technology and learning MOOC.  

On Friday evening I participated in a ZOOM reunion with a few of those people, who've stayed connected for the past 10 years. This was posted on Twitter following the gathering.

Thanks for the memories @courosa @paulsignorelli @erinhordyskiluong @karenatsharon @valerielopes @tutormentorteam @brandonlorenzo #etmooc 10 year @rljessen @tina_p @grammasheri @cogdog @debifucco @dendari @folynick @clhendrickbc @verenanz @sisquitman @nobleknits2 @JeffMerrell :) pic.twitter.com/SRyRtxmhEj

— Susan Spellman Cann (@SSpellmanCann) February 11, 2023

When I look at a participation map like the ETMOOC map I'm thinking of all the people, from so many different places, who are gathering to talk about ways to help kids.

Imagine a similar map showing Super Bowl viewers.  What would it take for hundreds, or thousands, of people in every city to be looking at information and sharing ideas for building mentor-rich, birth-to-work support systems for kids in every high poverty area, including virtual tutoring resources like Paper offers? 

Below is an animation that illustrates a role athletes could take on a regular basis to mobilize fans and owners to support constantly improving youth programs in high poverty areas.



This animation, and other videos in my library, could be re-produced in many ways, with hundreds of different athletes, celebrities, etc. giving the message.

I hope you'll think of these ideas as you watch the Super Bowl and reflect on it in coming days and weeks.  

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the game.  My family has roots in Philadelphia, so I'm rooting for the Eagles!

Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Mastodon and/or Facebook.

Help me pay the bills!  Check out the Fund T/MI page. 

Fix how youth programs are funded

Last night I interacted with some educators who I met in 2013 via an Education and Technology MOOC (#ETMOOC).  I mentioned a participation map that I had seen late 2012, which drew my attention to the event.  After looking around for a while, and exchanging some Tweets with the organizers, I found the map. You can see it below and at this link.

I've been encouraging leaders to use maps since 1994 because they point to all of the places within a geographic region, like Chicago, where people need extra help. Participation maps can show "who is in the conversation, and lead to a discussion of "who's missing".  I wrote about this in 2016 and 2017 articles. 

That's not really the focus of this article.

While I was scrolling my blog via my phone, looking for the ETMOOC map, I found a 2013 article I wrote about foundations who fund youth serving programs in Chicago and around the country.  I'm reposting that article below:

----- start ----

I’ve been part of an Education Technology MOOC (#ETMOOC) this week where more than 1000 people from around the world are connecting on-line and sharing ideas about uses of technology in education, learning, media and network building.

I’ve been trying for the past 20 years to build this type of learning community, connecting all of those who are concerned with the gap between rich and poor in America, the education system, workforce diversity, social justice, violence, public health, and a number of other reasons to be involved. Some people talk about the "village" it takes to raise kids. I write about it and try to bring members of the village together.

I started leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in 1975 (see history) while I held a full time job with the Montgomery Ward company. While our program grew to include over 300 pairs of youth and volunteers by 1990, funding was not an issue because all of the leaders were volunteers.

However, in 1990 when I converted this program to a 501-c-3 non profit and needed to raise money to pay salaries for myself and others to stay involved, the funding of non profits began to become a real issue. Over the years I’ve aggregated a wide range of personal frustration on the challenges small non profits face in finding consistent operating funds, and I’ve built a library of articles that show how others think on this topic.

I illustrate my thinking visually so let me show some maps that I think many of you will find interesting, and useful.

This is a map showing nearly 400 foundation (corporate and private) in the Chicago region and Eastern part of the United States who I put on my mailing list between 1993 and 2005.

Every year I send copies of my printed newsletters to these people, showing why tutor/mentor programs were needed and what I was doing as a direct service provider, and as leader of the intermediary Tutor/Mentor Connection.

The green icons on the map are foundations that funded my organization at least one time. Few funded me more than 2-3 years in a row. Some, like Montgomery Ward, funded me for seven consecutive years, then went out of business, and thus were not able to continue their support. None of the grants was larger than $50,000 and most were in the $1,000 to $10,000 per year range. Some were for general operating expenses, which I could use flexibly to build the organization, while many focused specifically on activities of the Cabrini Connections direct service program or the Tutor/Mentor Connection. In total I raised more than $6 million between 1993 and 2011, with a peak of $500,000 in 2000. This money split with 40% funding the Cabrini Connections direct service program, 40% the Tutor/Mentor Connection, and 20% funding operating and fundraising expenses. With no multi-year commitments, each year since about 1998 I started from zero in raising $300 to $400,000 from a wide range of donors.

This map shows a close up of the Chicago region so you can get a better sense of how many foundations I was reaching out to.

My organization never had more than 3 or 4 people on staff, and never had a full time professional development officer. I was CEO, chief innovator, chief marketing officer, newsletter writer, grant writer, janitor. Yet every year I was challenged to write letters of introduction, letters of inquiry, grant requests, grant reports, each with different requirements and different questions.

Yet we all were focused on helping expand the network of programs supporting inner-city kids during the non-school hours. By 1998 I was using web sites to show the work I was doing and what I was trying to do.

This map shows the Chicago LOOP area.

When I begin using maps I started following media stories about kids being killed in Chicago, with maps showing where this was happening, and with links showing what tutor/mentor programs were operating in those areas,

and what knowledge was available to community leaders, business and foundations so they would work to build programs that would provide more mentoring, tutoring, learning opportunities. Visit this Map Gallery to see a collection of maps created in the past.



This week I attended a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at the University of Chicago, where panel members were asked to talk about their experiences with mentoring.

They each talked about mentors who “helped them stay in school” and who provided life lesions, such as “never, ever forget where you come from”.

Here are some other quotes from the event:

“Who ever is talking to them and showing an interest is a mentor.”

“We need to mentor each other’s kids since our own don’t listen to us enough”

“Foundation of mentoring is caring.”

“Mentoring is a two-way street. Mentors learn from youth.”

“Students who are successful have great networking skills.”

“Since the middle class has left the inner city, how are we going to connect mentors with youth living in inner city neighborhoods” “How do we reach those kids.”

“The politicians don’t care. These kids and parents don’t vote.”

“Why are there only 30 people attending this event when this is National Mentoring Month?” Why don’t more people care?”

I handed out business cards to each of the participants and said “Let’s find ways to change this.” I share these ideas on my blog, and in MOOCs so that people in more places will come together to find ways to support the growth of mentor-rich programs in more places where they are needed.

I host a Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator with maps that show where tutor/mentor programs are needed. Why can’t leaders in these foundations use my maps, or similar directories, to adopt neighborhoods, then adopt tutor/mentor programs in those neighborhoods and make long-term commitments to help each program become the best in the world by borrowing ideas from each other and using a constant flow of operating/innovation dollars and volunteer talent to implement these ideas.

Here’s an interactive version of the map of foundations. You can enlarge the map and zoom in and see the name and location of each. Some no longer exist since this list was last updated in 2005. (2023 editor note: this map may not show up in your Chrome browser. It does show up when I view it from my phone. It also can be seen if you use Microsoft Edge browser.)
  

With more than 200 youth serving organizations in Chicago offering various forms of tutoring, mentoring and non-school support, we can have 200 development officers and/or Executive Directors reaching through this list to find foundations who will give them funds each year, which is a tremendous redundancy.

Or we can build strategies that educate and motivate donors and business partners to reach out and build proactive support systems for tutor/mentor programs in neighborhoods that need such programs.

We can discuss ideas like this in face-to-face events, like the May and November Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conferences. We can also connect in on-line events like the Education Technology MOOC.

We can do both. We can do better.

---- end 2013 article ----- 

Sadly, I still don't find people using maps to show participation in events, or to expand participation to more of those who need to be involved.  I've not seen many foundations using maps to show who is receiving their grants, or anyone aggregating this information to show all of those funding specific types of service categories, like youth development and/or tutor/mentor programs, within specific geographic areas.  

I've had almost no response to the business cards I shared in that January 2013 mentoring event. I still don't find youth development, tutor and/or mentor program leaders, staff, funders, researchers, and business leaders interacting in on-going MOOC-like events.

While I've actively reached out to build lists of stakeholders on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, I find few doing the same (or adding me to their lists). 

Maybe this is happening in different parts of the country, or the world, but I don't see it.  

If you share this article in your networks, maybe some people will send me links to websites showing this work being done.  I'll add those to my library and share them with others.

Thanks for reading. You can find me on these social media pages. 

Since writing the 2013 article I've added collections of articles in the About T/MI, History, and A New T/MC sections. Read these to understand what I've been trying to do, and to learn how you might duplicate this work in different places.

And, you can help me keep sharing these ideas by visiting my "Fund T/MI" page and sending a small contribution. 

How do we turn a participation map into a “collective impact” map?

See article

Last week I used the graphic at the right in an article about systems thinking. After writing it I shared it on Linkedin and so far it's recorded 3593 views and some great comments.

Yesterday I was updating links in my web library and found several that I added in 2013 while I was participating in the Education, Technology MOOC, or #ETMOOC.  Then a couple of hours later I was mentioned in a Tweet by Alan Levine, talking about the 2013 ETMOOC.

This prompted me to do a search for ETMOOC to see what I've posted about it. The first article on the list was from January 22, 2013, titled "Connected Learning. Collective Action".

I going to re-post that article here, with just a few updates and annotations, showing that the vision I had in 2013, and 20 years before that, is still live and kicking during Covid19 in 2020.

---- start of article ----

ETMOOC participants 2013

I’m one of more than 1600 people who have joined the Education Technology Mooc (#ETMOOC) since last Monday. I’ll be participating in the National Mentoring Summit in Washington, DC this Thursday and Friday where more than 500 people will be connected in the same building and for the same purpose.

This article aims to tie the two events together.

I have participated in several ETMOOC events since last Monday, including a session Sunday morning hosted by Dave Cormier, one of the first people to use the term MOOC. Visit this page to find the recording of Dave’s session, along with additional links to his ideas. (The site I originally pointed to is no longer on-line, but click here to read blogs by Dave, from 2006 till 2020) 

As part of the #ETMOOC, participants have written more than 850 blog articles and posted over 1000 Tweets. Most of these have focused on how MOOCs enable personal learning and introduce members and their ideas to each other. You can follow what you want. You can spend as much time reading blogs and taking part in live sessions as you want. You can share your own ideas and you can interact with others. Each participant controls their own learning experience. You can follow some of the blogs at this link.

This is complex problem
that I've focused on.

I’m interested in going beyond personal learning. My goal is to help build and sustain networks that use their learning, and the network, to innovate new ways to solve complex problems.

The ETMOOC network analysis map shows “who’s involved” based on history of participation. If you’ve followed previous articles on this blog you can see how I’ve been trying to map participation in Tutor/Mentor Conferences, the Ning group, and my Facebook and Linked in groups.

You’ll see how I focus on actions that grow the network, while growing the composition of the network at the same time. If we agree that It Takes a Village to Raise a Child, we need to get the business community strategically involved.

With this post I hope to stimulate a couple of different streams of thought.

1) How do we connect people participating in MOOCs with places where they become volunteers, donors, leaders who work together to solve complex social problems? (I'm still trying to do  this.)

2) How do we know if people from all sectors – e.g. business, philanthropy, government, community, religion, youth, etc. – are participating in our MOOCs or community of practice? (We still don't know, and I can't find many who are trying to find out.)

When I started the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 I could have just focused on sharing ideas I had developed since 1975 when I first started leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago. However, I did something different. I made a commitment to try to collect, organize and share experiences of others involved in this work. My goal was to collect “all that was known” about volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring, where such programs are needed, why they are needed, what it takes for them to have long term impact, how to support them, how to connect business and philanthropy to them, etc. This represents a vast library of knowledge and literally millions of people.

If you read the systems thinking article I wrote last week you can see this same thought. 

I’ve used Concept Maps to diagram my strategies, and the sections of my library. The diagram below shows the research section of the Tutor/Mentor Connection links library.

Open link to see current version of this cMap

If you click on any of the nodes you’ll go to a specific section of the web library which points to a variety of web sites with information related to that topic. Many of the web sites I point to have similar lists of web sites they point to. The collective knowledge that this represents is constantly expanding.

Every conversation uncovers
new ideas.

Every time I’m in a conversation, conference, or MOOC, I add sites I’m interested in to the library, which makes them immediately available to anyone else who visits the site. There’s an entire section of links in the Library to Knowledge Management articles, which is what I’m doing.

2020 --- I've been thinking about how to describe this lately. How many times are you in a conversation and someone says "Do you know about this or that piece of information?" It could be really valuable. Not just to me, but to others. Most of the time you leave the conversation and the information shared is lost. I've made a habit of taking notes, then adding links to what we talked about to the web library, so others could learn from it, too.

I realize I’ll never have “all that is known” but with 2000+ links, the library offers a massive pool of content for that could support a variety of MOOCs (and/or systems thinking projects).

By participating in ETMOOC and events like the Mentor Summit I hope to connect with others who will help with this process. I hope to find partners who will help organize future “tutor/mentor” MOOCs that draw people from the many different sites in my library into an on-line community that offers all of the personal learning and relationship building values that Dave Comier is describing in his presentation.

This is still not happening.

I hope to focus on strategies and actions that make mentor-rich programs available in more of the neighborhoods where they are most needed.

Tutor/Mentor Conference map

As that is happening, network analysis can show who’s participating and geographic maps can show what parts of the geography are represented. Such maps could demonstrate the growth of the network over a period of years, while enabling people from different sections of the library and/or different parts of the country or a big city like Chicago, to connect more easily with each other.

View articles
w this map. 

In one of the ETMOOC blogs I read last week the author told of how he feels others do a much better job of communicating ideas than he does. Then one day someone said “gee that’s really unique”.

I think others can communicate what I’m describing far better than I can. That’s one role interns have been taking. You can see some of their work here.

2020 - As people reach out and ask how can I help I invite them to read my blog articles, then create their own blog, or video, to share their  understanding of what I'm saying. Here's a concept map where I aggregate links to blogs where some people are doing that.

In this 2020 article I encourage students to take on this role, while doing learning from home. Any of the educators who I've met via cMOOCs could engage some of their students in this process, focusing on their own communities, not Chicago (unless they live in this area).

I hope that through the MOOCs and conferences I attend I’ll not only find people who share the same vision and strategy, but who will use their talent to help communicate these ideas in more creative, thoughtful and meaningful ways.

I’ll write more about this tomorrow before I head to the airport. I think this post is long enough already.

----- end rewrite of 2013 article -----

View at this link

Following the ETMOOC in 2013 I joined the CLMOOC and that has continued each year since then.  I've posted 61 articles that point to my participation in the CLMOOC including this article where I show my learning journey.

At the left is the most recent example of how we spark creativity among each other. I had posted an article about network building and Wendy Taleo from Australia included it in a visual poem she was working on with several others. See it here.  I circled where I show up on her journey map.

2020 EndPoverty Summit
in Chicago

At the right is a photo that shows participants at an EndPoverty Summit held in Chicago before Covid19 and hosted by Mayor Lightfoot. I wrote about it here and asked why we can't get non-profit youth program leaders, funders, researchers, volunteers and business partners....and youth/alumni, into on-going cMOOC type on-line conversations.

Covid19 has changed how people connect and communicate. #LearnAtHome and #WorkatHome are now becoming habits. Maybe it's time to make a new push to bring the youth and workforce development ecosystem into more integrated cMOOC-like engagement. 

For that to happen one or more visible leaders needs to step forward and champion the vision. And fund the work.

Today I was one of nearly 100 in a ZOOM meeting led by the Mayor's MyChiMyFuture youth initiative. The Mayor joined in for a few minutes. Maybe someone from that planning team will read this and begin to imagine ways to connect participants in this ecosystem, the same way the ETMOOC and CLMOOC people have been connecting and sharing ideas for many years.

Maybe someone will understand the need to  be mapping participation to show who's there, and who's missing.

If you're reading this and you want to help, create your own version and share it. Maybe you'll be the one that some big shots listen to and provide the funds to do this work.

Connect with me on these social media channels.

If you can, make a contribution to help me pay the bills. Visit this page to use the PayPal button.

Navigating Information Overload - 2019 update

See in this article

I studied history in college, then spent three years in the US Army, in the Intelligence branch. In both cases I was learning to use best available information to support decisions of leaders.

I began to build a library of information in the 1970s, while leading a single tutor/mentor program in Chicago. I expanded this effort in 1993 when I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection, and then in 1998 when I began to build the library on the Internet.

Visit this article and find links to all sections of the library.

We now have a new Mayor in Chicago, meaning new people will be seeking solutions to old problems.

Helping kids living in high poverty move safely through school and into adult live and jobs, will be one of the focus areas.

Four-part strategy click here

My hope is that the Mayor will point her team to the web library I've been building, and to the four-part strategy described in this visual.  What makes my library unique is that while some of the information is from my own experiences, most of the sites I point to, have their own web libraries. Thus, each site opens to hundreds, if not thousands, of additional resources.

With all of this information, how can normal people find time to do more than scratch the surface? I think this is one of the major problems facing the world. Too much information. Too few using it.

Below is what I wrote about this in a 2012 article.

Often I learn to understand what I've been doing by seeing how others present similar ideas. Over the past few years I've followed many people who share ideas in a variety of blogs, web sites, videos, social media sites, etc. I've pointed to many on my own blog and web site and even collect some of the links in my web library.

Over the past year I've been learning about Massive open Online Courses (MOOCS). Rather than trying to give you a description of my own, I encourage you to view this video then visit this CHANGE.MOOC.CA site.



Without knowing it, I've been creating a platform of information and ideas that is waiting for a team of facilitators to turn it into a MOOC. This video describes many of the strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and Tutor/Mentor Connection. It shows a way to connect people from different places and different networks in on-going learning that they can use to understand poverty and its impact on youth, families and communities, and to learn strategies working in some places that could be applied in other places.

I've used this graphic often to illustrate the "village" of people who need to be involved in this on-going learning process and in strategies that help kids in poverty areas have more of the support systems needed to move through school and into adult responsibilities.

In several past blog articles I've written about "silos" where groups focus on their own issues, with their own ideas, and their own limited membership. Chicago and other big cities are full of silos. Chicago has more than 200 different youth serving organizations offering various forms of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring in non-school hours.

Each one is forced to be a "silo" because of how they compete for dollars.

Yet, each also has common needs. Connecting together in a MOOC type of process, and engaging volunteers, alumni, business people, philanthropists, etc. might build shared commitment and new strategies for generating and distributing these resources, leading to constantly improving programs in all parts of an urban area.

Until we find ways to connect youth, volunteers, leaders, donors and policy makers from each of these different organizations and from business, religion, philanthropy, higher education,government, media, etc. we'll never have consistent strategies reaching young people in all poverty neighborhoods with best-in-world strategies learned from this world of ideas that can be found through the Internet.

I point to more than 2000 different web sites from my own sites...and these point to other web sites with even greater levels of information. It's the information overload that David Comer talks about in this video about MOOCs.

While I record more than 8000 visitors and 150,000 page views on my own web sites this is just a fraction of the people who need to be involved in this on-going learning. While I have the vision, I don't yet have the ability to organize and lead a MOOC that connects big-city stakeholders in on-going learning that draws from all of this information in the ways the video above describes.

Yet, if you look at the structure of the courses on CHANGE.MOOC, perhaps the blog I've written since 2005 could be considered a MOOC! It's open to anyone in the world. In needs more facilitators.

New organizations keep sprouting up in Chicago with new sponsors and new donors putting up hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are reinventing the wheel and the cost of accumulating all of this information and building a network of people to share it will be overwhelming.

-------------- end 2012 article --------

Since 2012 I've  participated in other cMOOCs and one group that has has a longer-lasting connectivity is a Connected Learning #CLMOOC group that started in 2013 and continues in 2019.

Here's an article that I wrote about this group in late December 2018.

So, what's next?

This picture shows how I constantly am trying to connect people in my network with information in my web library. 

I'd love to find a collection of similar graphics, picturing the Mayor, the Governor, CEOs of business and philanthropy, doing the same thing.  They don't need to point to my library, if the sites they point to have links to it.  But they do need to be encouraging the growth of this information base, as a source of understanding  and solving complex problems.

If you'd like to know more about what I'm describing, let's connect.  I'm on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIN. You can introduce yourself in the comments section.

Building Local-Global Problem Solving Connections

I've been connecting with people and ideas via Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook for the past 10 years. I currently find Twitter chats more valuable than either other platform so I created this hashtag concept map so others could connect via the same groups I've found.

For the past two weeks I've been part of an on-line #EngageMOOC course focused on "Engagement in a time of Polarization".  The content (videos, articles) for the course is hosted on #EdX, so you need to be logged in to read. However, some materials are also available on YouTube and Hypothes.is.   I put the 2/12/18 YouTube hangout video on my Vialogues page, so others could view and offer comments.  I read and commented on the article titled "Power, Polarization and Tech" using Hypothes.is

The course content will remain on line for at least one year, in archive format, but without the chatter on Twitter, I'm not certain how many more people will find the information, read it, and engage with others. Furthermore, after a year all of this may disappear.

The problems we focus on will extend much longer than that.

I've been building a web library for the past 20 years (which before that was a paper-based library hosted at my office in Chicago).  If you view tweets I've posted about #tutor #mentor and #learning, you'll see that I point to this regularly, as a resource for anyone in the world who wants to get involved in reducing poverty, which includes building and sustaining non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach k-12 youth in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago and any other city.

I created the cMap shown below today to illustrate the need to archive information and keep it available for decades and to motivate growing numbers of people to spend time learning from the library to support ways they use their own time, talent, dollars and civic engagement, where ever they live, or in what ever issue they focus on.

Yesterday I attended a lunch event at the Chicago Hyatt Regency in Chicago, along with at least 300 others. I sat between the General Consul from Japan and the General Consul from South Korea. We listened to Senator Tammy Duckworth describe 21st century threats and opportunities.

“If we are to remain successful as a nation, we must be active in our efforts to safeguard our position as a global economic and cultural power, not just a military one.” - Thrilled to have @SenDuckworth reinforce the importance of America's continued global engagement #usglcIL pic.twitter.com/1r3ne0C5mA

— USGLC (@USGLC) February 23, 2018

As I listened I tweeted out a wish that all these people were connected and engaged via Twitter chats and other social media platforms, the way I've been growing my engagements. Furthermore, I hoped that more and more of the on-line interactions would point to reading material and videos the way the #engageMOOC course has been doing.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) is an "information based 4-part problem solving strategy, visualized in the cmap at the right, and in this article. It uses information to support decisions and actions, including the flow of resources into high poverty areas.

I hope that my conversations on-line and with people I sit next to at lunch will lead them to look at what I'm writing, and will lead them to engage youth as intermediaries, like myself, in bringing more people to on-line forums and on-line libraries.  The video below is an example of what's possible. It was created by an intern from South Korea and it shows work that previous interns did when they were working with me.



This is one of many visualizations created by interns between 2005 and 2015.   On this page you can see a list of interns who have worked with my organization, and the universities they came from.

I've been reaching out to universities since starting the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) in 1993, with a request for shared ownership that involves students, faculty and alumni. While I've been fortunate to have many interns take short term roles, up to one year, I've not been able to embed a Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute program on any campus, where it shares the goal of the university and many different departments of the university, as well of many different alumni.

I've never been able to bring money to the table, thus my ideas get polite nods and "go find a younger professor" suggestions.

Many of the people who I'm meeting in on-line communities come from high schools and higher education.  Here's an article where I invite universities to form an on-campus program that duplicates what I've been trying to do, and does it better, and for many more years into the future. I think this could be happening at the high school level, too.

Learning Communities
Graphic created by Intern 

At some point in the future a #clmooc that I point to should be one where students and alumni from different universities, in different countries, are sharing work they've been doing to learn what I've been trying to do and to apply those ideas to help reduce poverty in their own communities.

Interested? Connect with me @tutormentorteam on Twitter or on Linkedin or Facebook. Or introduce yourself with a comment on this article.

Engaging on-line - #engageMOOC

I signed up a couple of weeks ago to participate in this two week on-line course titled "Engagement in a time of Polarization", and my Twitter feed gave me some reminders today.

#engageMOOC pic.twitter.com/2kXOrlws6M

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) February 13, 2018

So I looked at a video, read an article, added comments via Hypothesis, then saw this tweet by Christina Hendricks.

Did a blog post for #engageMOOC, reflecting on what I watched today: https://t.co/pX5NSdiGcC Have added my blog to the contribution hub for the course: https://t.co/4V1WbsV2sr (takes a day or so to get there!)

— Christina Hendricks (@clhendricksbc) February 13, 2018

After reading I posted some thoughts. As I was finishing, I decided to also post those thoughts here;

Hi Christina. I think we first connected via ETMOOC a few years ago. I'm on Mastodon, too and I've seen some of your posts there.

I agree with your comment about the potential of blogs to support deeper learning. I've been writing mine for over 10 years, with the same overall goal of connecting people and ideas that support the growth of non-school tutor, mentor, learning programs in high poverty areas.

I see three levels of engagement.

1. Current social media, or the stream and flow (Clay Shirky wrote about this). We dip in and out of the stream. We add to it. We draw from it. We ignore much of it. We miss the majority of what's there due to limited time on-line and limited connections in our networks. It may be that we're now missing much due to how social media platform algorithms determine who sees our posts and who we see.

2. Blog posts - these enable anyone to comment in greater depth about what they are seeing on social media, traditional media as well as from events and meetings they host or participate in. They allow us to share work we're doing in real life, in schools, non-school, programs, feeding the hungry, resisting, etc.  Using hyperlinks, they enable us to connect our readers to a much deeper and extensive library of information.

3. The world wide library - curated collections. This to me is critically important. While a Google search can lead you to information posted anywhere in the world, you need to know what you're looking for to find it in the first 10 to 20 links that show up as a search result.  Many people may now know what they are looking for. Thus if someone is building a web library with information related to a topic (such as the references posted on articles with the #engageMOOC), then anyone can be pointed to that library at any time via hyperlinks in a blog article or via hypelinks attached to a post on one of the social media platforms.

This means anyone can pick out a video, article, piece of research, blog post, etc. and gather friends, co-workers, etc. to read, reflect, discuss, and over time integrate into their understanding of a situation and ways they might respond to it.

As you wrote above, fewer people seem to be commenting on blog posts. From my Google Analytics, fewer people are viewing these. It may be that no one likes what I'm writing, but I think it's more the result of so many people posting on different platforms and much fewer people taking time to read and reflect on what other people are writing.

Thus, as we go through #engageMOOC and beyond I look forward to finding ways to draw more people from the stream and into the deep end of learning, and to how that helps us understand and try to solve some of the many complex problems we face in our local-global lives.

Note: I invite you to review eLearning goals that the Tutor/Mentor Connection first posted in 2004 when we worked with IUPUI on our first on-line conference. I was never able to find funding, or partners, to fully develop this strategy.

Digging deeper into "here to there" graphic

On Wednesday I posted an article about an on-line digital citizenship conversation, under the hashtag #digciz. I included a graphic from Kevin Hodgson's blog. Today I read another article from Kevin's blog, with a list of  issues he is interested in.

Here to There Steps

That prompted me to look at some past articles I'd written, including this one titled "Social Media and Civic Engagement" where I point to another article by Kevin. In that article I also included this graphic.

Each text box on this graphic represents an issue that I feel needs to be part of any discussion of local-global problems and solutions.  To me civic engagement is not just talking about who gets elected. It's talking to other people about ways we can use our own time, talent and dollars, as well as our votes, to bring solutions to some of those problems.

I created this graphic earlier this year to illustrate how much of our daily attention seems to be focused on what the new President of the US is doing, and what I and others should be doing to resist or elect different people to represent us.

However, the goal was to also show that we still need to provide daily attention to the problems we can solve, if we can just get more people to connect and work together, and more people to think creatively about ways they apply their time, talent and dollars.

In my article I wrote

I'm not just trying to motivate people to read and reflect. I'm trying to motivate on-going investments of time, talent and dollars to support the growth of youth serving organizations that help kids move through school and into jobs.

Thus, my list of topics is focused on problem solving, not just creating on-line discussions and learning opportunities.

I wasn't sure how to communicate what was shown on the graphic, so I decided to put the Lumin5 tool to a new test. Below is the video that I created.



Since 2005 interns have been looking at graphics and blog articles I've created and have then created their own interpretations, which I show here.  

I think one thing educators and leaders of non-school tutor/mentor programs could do is to encourage youth to look at articles like mine, Kevin's and the #digciz community, then build their own interpretations and share them on various social media platforms. Others could do this, too.

For instance, take a look at the visualizations created during this Sketch50 event.   Or look at the ideas Terry Elliott captured in the Storify on his blog.

There are thousands of people creating visualizations daily. I'd like to focus some continuously on the graphics and ideas I've been sharing for the past 20 years in an effort to bring more people and resources to efforts that make mentor-rich school and non-school learning and youth development opportunities available to k-12 youth in every high poverty area of the country.

What do you think? Are your students doing this?

Building the Network. Who's Here. Who's Not Here?

Just read a post by Kevin Hodgson, a 6th grade teacher from Western Mass, who I have come to know over the past four years by my participation in the Connected Learning MOOC.

In his post Kevin included this Storify, showing a conversation from a Twitter Chat held in July 2016.



This type of conversation needs to be taking place in many sectors, including the youth development, tutoring, mentoring and non-school program sector. It needs to include volunteers, educators, youth (and alumni), parents, donors, evaluators, business partners and policy makers, not just program staff and leaders.

Where do you start?

In Kevin's article, and in the Twitter chat, we talked about what the organizers could do to expand participation.  In Tutor/Mentor Conferences I  organized from 1994-2015 we talked about what  programs can do to actively recruit volunteers.

However, I am focusing on turning this around. I became part of the #CLMOOC in 2013 after participating earlier in an Education Technology and Media MOOC, and a Deeper Learning MOOC. I found announcements for these as I followed my Twitter and social media feeds, and was curious enough to visit the web site, see what they were doing, and click the "join" button.

From that point on, it was a matter of listening, commenting and building relationships.  Sheri Edwards, another educator, who I met in the #CLMOOC, posted this article, showing ways for people to get started in on-line learning networks.

She said "Everyone starts somewhere. Just start".

Thus, the group grows as members reach out to friends, or through their social media networks, and invite others to join in.

I created this graphic in the 1990s to show how volunteers involved in tutor/mentor programs could be inviting people they know to visit our web sites and get information and ideas that they could discuss in small groups of friends, co-workers, faith group members, etc.

Now these discussions can also be held in organized MOOCs, using Twitter chats, Google and Skype hangouts, Facebook, Google+ and many other types of platforms.

As that happens, maps can capture participation information and support analysis and discussions of "Who's here and Who's Missing."

As a result future maps will fill in with larger participation from more of the different groups who might contribute ideas, solutions, and even resources.