E-Mentoring
Good morning everyone,
Our program is considering adding an e-mentoring component to our existing face-face component. Does anyone have any suggestions as far as software or web based programs to utilize with e-mentoring. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Dana
Mentoring Coordinator
About Our Kids, Inc.
I recently attended a presentation on iMentor Interactive, which is a comprehensive online system for e-mentoring that includes tools to keep track of matches, a curriculum that mentors and mentees can use together to stimulate e-conversations, data collection, reporting and evaluation tools, etc. You may not be looking for something that comprehensive, but it's possible they would be willing to offer portions of their product to you. You can learn more about them at: http://www.imentor.org/imentor_interactive/
YouthFriends has an e-mentoring tool called MentorMail, but I'm not sure if they market it to other mentoring organizations. Call YouthFriends at 816-842-7082 to get more information about their product.
This useful article reviews the features, cost and functionality of the most evolved and widely used e-mentoring platforms. It was written as an aid in decision-making about starting a community-wide e-mentoring program, so has a lot of information about: what should be considered before starting an e-mentoring program (it includes a community questionnaire/needs assessment); what features and functionality communities should consider for e-mentoring programs; the advantages and disadvantages of e-mentoring vs. one-on-one mentoring; and what research base exists to support e-mentoring (including both research and areas where little research yet exists).
An Investigation of Electronic Mentoring Practice, Peter Knight, Will Zheng, Chelse Pipkin, School of Business and Technology, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, http://www.uwp.edu/departments/community.partnerships/documents/E-Mentor...
Dana,
As a founding member of chronus, I suggest looking into our online mentoring solution at http://chronus.com. In the Northwest area Chronus Mentor platform is used to implement mentoring at University of Washington and Northwest Entrepreneur Network.
MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership used to have a product called Mentors Online. I'm not sure if they are still supporting it or not. But here is the page that describes the tech requirements and so forth:
http://www.ementoringcenter.com/program_staff/ementoring/mentors_online_...
I've heard of people using things like Yahoo Groups for this as well.
The NMC did a nice issue on technology/e-mentoring several years ago. Some of the tech talk in it is a bit outdated, but much of the philosophy in the main interview article on e-mentoring still applies.
http://www.nwrel.org/mentoring/pdf/bull9.pdf
Mike Garringer
Mentoring Forums Administrator
503-275-9747