What's a "wiki"?

There's no better place to learn about a wiki than at Wikipedia:

A wiki is a website that allows visitors to add, remove, and edit content. A collaborative technology for organizing information on Web sites, the first wiki (WikiWikiWeb) was developed by Ward Cunningham in the mid-1990s. Wikis allow for linking among any number of pages. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, is one of the best known wikis...
The word wiki is a Hawaiian word meaning "quick". Wiki systems are therefore designed so that their content can be made available in a quick and uncomplicated manner.

So what's all that mean? And how can we use it? Well Suzanne W. Morse of Smart Communities has an offer we can't refuse -

This summer we're offering one-on-one assistance to those interested in using the Learning to Finish wiki to collaborate on solutions to the dropout crisis. We understand that new technologies are intimidating at first but can be extremely rewarding further on down the road. We'll help you overcome any initial trepidation you might feel about participating on a wiki by answering any question (no matter how small) and offering technical assistance to get you pushed to the top of the learning curve as quickly as possible.

The Learning to Finish Wiki is a website "that fosters collaboration between parents, educators, community members, researchers, and students toward lowering the dropout rate." Right now it is made up of 3 sections - Program Case Studies, Background Reading , and Online Links.

As a member of the wiki you can add and edit the information shared. As newbies in the online world of non-profits we are definately going to take advantage of this and we encourage you to join in. The more links we make in our mentoring community, the stronger and more sustainable we become. The Learning to Finish Wiki is a great opportunity to find out how to keep Vermont kids in school and prepare them for the future. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education "Research indicates that about 75 percent of America’s state prison inmates, almost 59 percent of federal inmates, and 69 percent of jail inmates did not complete high school." (from Saving Futures, Saving Dollars; Click for download of PDF report)

Wouldn't it be great to join in and help stop this disturbing trend?

A New Neighbor

One of the most difficult things about running any volunteer organization is getting your message out to like-minded individuals. You can post flyers around town, you can rely on work of mouth, and you can put a press release in the local paper. With the great power of the Internet you can also connect up with people you would never have met in any other way.

And that is how we came across the Neighbor Networking Blog and Habib Rose. Neighbor Networking is also a part of the Tutor/Mentor Blog Exchange going on this month in conjunction with the biannual Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago.

The idea of the neighborhood for a large city is certainly different than the focus for the small cities and rural areas that we have in Vermont. In the post from May 3rd, Habib writes about the pluses of connecting to others within your neighborhood:

[I]n the case of cities on the West Coast, it is my impression that there is always a possibility of connecting people who have needs with neighbors (in their broad neighborhood) who can offer assistance. Making these connections on a neighborhood level rather than all the way across a city offers a number of benefits including:
1. Greater possible frequency of interactions (you don’t have to make a special trip way across town)
2. Higher likelihood of familiarity with the culture, surroundings, and living situation of the kids who are getting help
3. Less time wasted in travel across town
4. Less gasoline wasted, pollution generated etc. (in situations where one or both parties are driving or being driven)

It is my guess that one of the best ways for people to get involved as Tutors/Mentors with T/MC is to know other people who are already Tutors/Mentors. So, the more Tutors/Mentors that get started in any general neighborhood, the greater the likelihood of finding additional people in those same neighborhoods.

Some of these principles can be applied to us in Southern Vermont but we do have to expand our neighborhoods to greater geographic areas. Sometimes there just aren’t enough people in our physical neighborhoods to meet our mentoring needs.

That is why a program like “Let’s Do Lunch” has so much success here. The students are in a central location (school) and the mentors come from local businesses. The neighborhood is expanded and ties between communities are formed. The mentor and mentee may live at opposite ends of the travel spectrum – but they are brought together at lunch. Once the connection is made the mentoring program may expand to after-school and summer activities as well.

We are hoping that we will also be able to expand our neighborhood using this blog and other Web 2.0 applications like del.icio.us bookmarks and Technorati.

We are also expanding our virtual neighborhood as much as possible but we’re also looking for ideas of how to connection this blog to local people. How do you get the word out to people who may not be looking for you? This weekend we handed out flyers about the blog at Green Up Day in Springfield. A decidedly non-tech solution. But every little bit helps!

Do you get excited when you see your name in print?

So do we! The Vermont Mentoring Blog has joined the Tutor-Mentor Blog Exchange for May. We will be telling you about other mentoring sites like the Cabriniblog from Chicago that we mentioned in our April 30th post.

In addition they will be blogging about us! This has already started and the exchange of links and ideas will not only help to get our name out there, but will also help get the word out about mentoring and how it can help a community grow.

So if you are interested - link up with us through the Tutor-Mentor Blog Exchange and get your name in print. And if you are a local mentor or mentee and would like to tell us your story - contact us at trv.mentoring@gmail.com or contact Marie Gelineau at mgelineau@springfield.k12.vt.us.

And of course we hope to see you in person this Saturday, May 5th in Springfield at the Commons to help with Green-Up Day . Come help us celebrate our community!