eMentoring

by: Kara Dougherty


It takes a village to raise a child… (African Proverb)


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What is eMentoring?

Electronic mentoring, commonly referred to as eMentoring, is a mentoring partnership carried out over the Internet, typically via e-mail (E-Mentoring Resources, 2006). Many eMentoring programs exist today, in a variety of forms. Mentors who volunteer for academic eMentoring programs offer their mentees expert advice on careers, research, and assignments.

These programs are a wonderful resource for schools, particularly those in lower income or remote areas, where availability and accessibility to the best educational tools is scarce. In effort to ensure the safety and privacy of those taking part in eMentoring, the relationship is overseen by the student's teacher and the mentor's company or organization. A well supervised, highly maintained eMentoring program is a wonderful resource for students of any age.


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How does eMentoring work?

The beauty of eMentoring is that it is very simple to use. eMentoring partnerships are commonly maintained through e-mail, so the only technology you really need is a computer and Internet access. Mentors can communicate with their mentees during downtime at work or at home, and thus are unhindered from volunteering due to time constraints. Students of all ages can make use of eMentoring, from preschoolers to post-grads. Additionally, eMentoring is affordable for schools, if not completely free. This program can be used strictly for academic purposes, or for social development, too. To set up an eMentoring program in your school, I suggest visiting the National Mentoring Partnership's eMentoring Resources page.


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Why use eMentoring?

In today's world, there are more mentees than mentors. You can read about this mentoring gap on the National Mentoring Partnership's comprehensive website. By eliminating the obstacles that tight budgets, geography and busy schedules create, eMentoring helps to reduce this unfortunate disparity.

At a 2005 event held by the National Mentoring Partnership, student Ean Garrett's testimony demonstrates the strong need for eMentoring programs:

From the start I was expected to lose. Everything I have right now is mostly because I defied what the world concluded about me before I could even speak a word in my defense. And my defense is that I am just as capable as any person to do great things. Like you, I think about all the things this world could achieve if only every child was given the right tools. Mentoring is the right tool and it is the way to the American Dream. To everyone here tonight, I hope you will promise to do everything you can to help make mentoring and the American Dream a reality for every child in this city and every other city in the country. It’s their best defense, too (About MENTOR, 2006).

Read more mentoring success stories on the National Mentoring Partnership's website here.


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How are teachers using eMentoring?

The College of William and Mary has a wonderful eMentoring service called the Electronic Emissary Project. This program's website includes an excellent list of ways in which eMentoring is implemented in the classroom. Here are just a few examples listed on the site:

• High school students in Delaware who were studying Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter communicated with the character Arthur Dimsdale, who was actually an American literature professor at the U.S. Naval Academy. During the following semester, the students communicated with the professor himself about Mark Twain's Huck Finn, culminating their exchange by creating a newspaper that they called The Mississippi Times, an idea first suggested by the expert. The teacher and the professor shared instructional ideas, resources, and perspectives about Mark Twain's works and views.

• Students in the "upper room" of a country school in a rural and mountainous region of northern California (11 students, ranging from 4th to 8th grade in the same classroom) learned about bones and skeletons by studying their own skeletal systems and the bones found in owl pellets in the woods near their school. Their teacher, along with a biological researcher at Michigan State University, guided the students' hypothesis formation and testing as they extracted the bones from the pellets, measured them, labeled them, then reconstructed the skeletons and deduced what kinds of animals the bones supported.
  

• An Advanced Placement Spanish Literature class in Ross, California communicated with Bob Fritz, a professor of Spanish at Ball State University. All communication was conducted in Spanish. Topics addressed included the nivolas of Miguel de Unamuno and how these works fit into the cultural and historical context of Spain (Harris, 1999).
  

To read the complete list, go here.


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Want more information? Check out these resources:

Achievement Advocate Online Mentoring Community

Be A Mentor

Electronic Emissary Project

GEM-SET

IBM MentorPlace

iMentor

National Mentoring Partnership (E-Mentoring Resources, 2006).


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Citations:

(2006). About MENTOR. Retrieved July 17, 2006, from MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership website: http://www.mentoring.org/about_us/index.php

(2006). E-Mentoring Resources. Retrieved July 13, 2006, from California's Governor's Mentoring Partnership website: http://www.mentoring.ca.gov/e-mentoring.shtm

(2006). eMentoring Resources. Retrieved July 17, 2006, from MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership website: http://www.mentoring.org/program_staff/index.php?cid=60

Harris, Judi. (1999). About the Electronic Emissary Project. Retrieved July 17, 2006, from Electronic Emissary website: http://emissary.wm.edu/index.php?content=about.html&menu=Widgets

Johnson Lewis, Jone. (n.d.). Education Quotes. Retrieved July 13, 2006, from Wisdom Quotes website: http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_education.html

(2006). Mentoring Stories. Retrieved July 18, 2006, from MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership website: http://www.mentoring.org/mentoring_month/meet_mentors_mentees//