Global Voices Online

Mentor Planning

From Global Voices Wiki

This is where we can share ideas for mentorship

I think to be able to inspire all of us need to be able to answer the following questions and be able to relate this:

- What have you got out of blogging? - What inspired you to start blogging? - Why do you blog?

PLEASE change, add, modify whatever you want in total confidence. Just click the edit button above and you are ready to go.

These are the rough notes from the meetings

Contents

[edit] Ideas for exercises (from meeting B)

Joint posts or meme between students that require linking from one post to the next

Ismail: have you seen probloggers 'blogging' course? maybe we could develop something like that?

Using GVO as an inspirational tool

Daily projects... that will allow them to learn, practical things - and simple things like... maybe find a blog on particular subject... maybe contact the author etc.

So once you have "met" your student online and had some interaction with them on email and/or chat or skype, I think it's important to have a plan for what you want to do with them that matches their interests

Gayle: I'm going to write a 'tips' list of all the stuff I did right and wrong when I began blogging--maybe we could combine?

[edit] Ideas for mentor curriculum (from meeting A)

  • Course instructors aim to take care of teaching technical skills, and idea is for mentors to focus on inspiring the content and possibilities of blogging
  • We want to encourage engagement and comments on other blogs not only writing
  • Encouraging students to do roundups, where they write posts based on what they read in other blogs.
  • We want to help them make their blogs attractive and interesting to read, and help them develop their voice and gain self-confidence
  • In order to document mentor experience, either creating a mentor blog or using a shared tag for mentors to blog about their thoughts in their own blog. At least one person plans to keep a "personnal logbook" of the mentorship
  • Taking the GV Advocacy and Rising Voices guides to blogging and activism in use.
  • Mentors should comment on student blogs as a way to support
  • Writing a few posts on GV quoting from both the mentor posts and student posts in order to share and document the experience.
  • The personal blogging experience of each mentor is key
  • We should expect to take an individualized approach to the mentoring, people will have different interests: both mentors and students. some mentees will appreciate learning new tools such as twitter while for others it will be overwhelming
  • We will share blog addresses & general info with the whole group, so we can promote more than just our individual mentee, and we can organize "mentors only" meetings along the way to share experiences and check how are we doing
  • We could spread a meme on "why i blog" in the GV community, collect all the posts and that could be a sort of beginners handbook
  • We need to chat often on email, IM, and maybe even Skype. Keeping in touch with them often to keep them motivated throughout the 6 weeks. Whateve works between mentor and mentee.
  • Giving them good blogs to read would be inspiring

[edit] Daily Activities

The way i picture mentoring is giving the mentee a daily activity, which you can also choose to complete with them. Feel free to add your thoughts on this. Also if you can think of any please add them here. We can work out a schedule for the activities depending on the time it will take. i.e a new activity everyday or every second day?

Also, the activities should build up as we go along, and should add to previous activities learnings.

  • Identify 3 topics you are passionate about, care about, you believe there needs to be a bigger focus on from an advocacy perspective
  • Identify 3 blogs in these topics
  • start reading these blogs, and post comments to them
  • select a story from one of these blogs that you find interesting or have a view point and write about it
  • Identify a few key terms related to these topics and setup alerts (Twitter/ Google alerts)

[edit] Ideas in general:

  • Special coverage page on GV, and regular roundups before that.
  • Prepare to tell a story in which you did / were involved in Online Activism through your blog / contribution. How it had impact on real people, in real lives.

[edit] Interesting articles/blogs on Climate Change

(from Laura) ABC Documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bISCbOUozMk&feature=PlayList&p=F31113343182BC40&index=0&playnext=1

(from Diego) Global Voices on Blog Action Day: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/09/28/global-voices-and-the-blog-action-day-2009/

(from Ali) AP analysis on Climate Change: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090922/ap_on_re_us/un_un_climate_analysis

(from Mohammad) New film from England on Climate Change. Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZjsJdokC0s

(from Solana) The following article is a really good and brief recap of where the world nations are headed in the climate change negotiations: "No Climate Change Leader as Nations Meet"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/science/earth/20nations.html?_r=2&ref=global-home

(from Solana) The theme - or case study - of the education is climate justice but the students can blog about anything. By climate justice we refer to thinking of climate changes and social justice together. This is also about focussing on the links between climate and poverty, of how climate change is affecting poor people in the Global South worst...

Example: http://www.globalissues.org/article/231/climate-justice-and-equity

(from Gayle) This is about migration from northern Ghana to richer southern areas of Ghana, in part as a result of changing climate conditions. I think it will give you a good sense of the issues this project aims to explore. The area this article talks about is also one of the jumping off points for Ghanaians who cross the Sahara to try to migrate to Europe which, surely, is going to increase as conditions worsen in this part of the country (close to where I live now).

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bb6b0efc-5ad9-11de-8c14-00144feabdc0.html


A list of Environmental Journalist on Twitter: http://tweepml.org/Society-of-Environmental-Journalists

[edit] Blogging Inspiration

(from Solana) Here's an example of the kind of journey a brilliant person can go on with a little inspiration (mentorship?) from the GV community.

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/09/06/translator-of-the-week-boukary-konate-in-mali/

Global Wake Up Call! "The alarms, and subsequent phone calls, were meant to draw attention to climate change legislation on the eve of the United Nations Climate Summit, held this week in New York City. " (from http://mobileactive.org/global-wake-call)

Mentees photos from the event in Denmark:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=wakeupcall+copenhagen+avaazorg http://www.flickr.com/photos/blaineo/

And here are two videos from the event: Short one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17X_m-7UVt4

And longer one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA7YToE6QE0&feature=player_embedded#t=39

[edit] Technical advice

The Common Craft "in plain English" <a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/videos">video series</a>, including "<a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs">Blogs in Plain English</a>" and "<a href="http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter">Twitter in Plain English</a>"


<a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/sylwia-presley/">Sylwia's</a> newly started <a id="t1ul" title="blog about how to blog" href="http://bloggingalife.wordpress.com/">blog about how to blog</a>

An <a id="i2-g" title="inspiring guide" href="http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/a-brief-guide-to-world-domination/">inspiring guide to world domination</a>.

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