Technology and eLearning - SVHATS 2.0

We started the new school year at Cabrini Connections this week, with orientations sessions for students and volunteers.

One of our goals is to teach students, volunteers, staff and leaders to use advancing networking, learning and collaboration tools in their daily interactions. The result of this is that students and volunteers will build learning habits that help them succeed in school, and compete more effectively for 21st century jobs.

One of our strategies is to use an on-line documentation system, (Student-Volunteer History and Tracking System) to document actions and encourage communications between students, volunteers and staff. While we created this system in 2003 and have been encouraging use since then, some of the communications features have never been working as well as we'd like because we have not had the manpower to upgrade the system.

This fall our eLearning and Technology Coordinator, Vjeko Hlede, has rebuilt SVHATS2.0 on a Moodle Platform. While this is for the Cabrini Connections community, I encourage other leaders of tutoring/mentoring programs in Chicago and beyond to review the system introduction.

SVHATS is just one way we support our students and volunteers and learn from their actions. Blogs written by staff and volunteers is another. These focus on different parts of what we do, and offer different perspectives than if there were just one instructor giving information to everyone.

Furthermore, Cabrini Connections is just one of hundreds of volunteer based tutoring and/or mentoring programs we support through our Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy. We maintain a database of hundreds of programs and an email list of more than 4,000 people. Each month we send information to everyone on the list that points to research on tutoring/mentoring, ideas being generated by different programs, and blogs and forums where people can connect and share ideas. Our aim is that other people help spread this information via their own technology. Here's an example.

Part of this points to the Student and Volunteer pages on the Cabrini Connections web site, and our Weekly News. We use this information to support our own students and volunteers. However, we believe that anyone in the world could operate their own program, and coach their own students and volunteers, using the information we provide each week to our own group. If you visit the Tutor/Mentor Institute, you'll find pdf essays that share our vision of a comprehensive, volunteer-based tutor/mentor program where the long term goal is that kids who start with us in elementary school our middle school, are still connected to the program, some of the volunteers, and each other, as they are looking for job interviews as a young adult.

Research shows that the community where you grow up has the greatest influence of your economic success in life. A tutor/mentor program like Cabrini Connections in a high poverty neighborhood changes the mix of adults and experiences that influence and support a youth's aspirations, and opportunities. Thus, if organizations in different parts of Chicago, or in different cities, want to create programs like Cabrini Connections, they can borrow liberally from the material on our web sites to design such programs, and to support their weekly efforts.

As you take that role, link to our sites and you'll provide a wider range of knowledge to your students, volunteers, staff and supporters. Participate in the conferences and forums we host, and we can share ideas and learn from you on a more consistent basis.

This is what Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 are all about and if we can teach our teens to use these concepts, we can give them tools they can use throughout their lives.

Using Technology to Support Youth as Leaders

Many people talk about youth as leaders, but in my own personal experience, leaders are people who have a passion for something, and who invite others to help them solve that problem.

My passion is helping tutor/mentor programs like Cabrini Connections grow in high poverty neighborhoods. Within each of these programs my passion is to inspire the youth, volunteers, staff and donors to constnatly learn from the work of others that they meet via the Internet, to innovate on a daily basis better ways to help our teens stay in school, stay safe during non school hours, and build an adult network that will help them move into jobs and careers as they go their their mid-twenties.

One way I do this is to share ideas that I find via my networking on the Internet.

Here's a link to a youth program in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, in which youth are becoming environmental advocates, and are learning to use web technologies to organize and communicate their messages.

What are the causes our youth might become passionate about?

How about the envirionment? How about the health issues of wounded soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan? How about the social injustices and inequalities of poverty?

How do we lead our teens into this type of involvement? We recruit volunteers who have a passion for these issues themselves, and who will form learning circles at Cabrini Connections, or who will use the tech club, art club, video or writing clubs, as opportunities to teach the communications tools kids need, while providing content ideas through study of social issues.

Are you the type of volunteer who would like to help organize these types of learning circles? If yes, contact us at 312-492-9614 or info1@cabriniconnections.net

Year End Dinner Celebrates Community of Youth and Adults at Cabrini Connections

On June 12th Cabrini Connections celebrated the 2007-08 school year with a dinner and awards ceremony. We recognized the work of 75-80 teens and nearly 100 volunteers who met weekly for one-on-one tutoring/mentoring and/or group learning. Four of our students were high school graduates. Most will be in 8th through 12th grade next year and will continue to need our help, and support from our donors.

When we say "tutor/mentor" most people might think of an image of a youth and volunteer sitting together. How many think of a diagram like the one posted here.



If our aim is to help our 7th graders be starting jobs and careers by age 25, what are the actions that need to happen each week and every year? What are the roles of kids, volunteers, parents, donors and others who need to be involved?

The goal of our elearning strategy is to create an on-line community which includes all of our stakeholders, who each spend time thinking about this goal, and their role in helping us achieve it, and then share what they know with others, via on-line collaboration communities. We've created a technology wiki for people to participate in this process. If you'd like to add your talent to help with planning, marketing, or to be a project manager in one of our technology activities, please introduce yourself.

We've also created a library of ideas and technology tools that our kids and volunteers can learn from. As more and more people visit these sites we hope they will gather in forums like Classroom2.0 to share and learn with others from around the world who are using technology for learning.

End Of Year

With the end of the school year Cabrini Connections last official days of tutoring for the 2007-2008 school year are Wednesday May 21st. and Thursday May 22nd.; however, mentoring is a year round affair and we will still be open Monday - Friday throughout the summer. We encourage our students, parents, alumini and volunteers to come in and continue to use the technology resources for communication, research and learning during our tutoring/mentoring open house every Wednesday evening from 6:00-7:30 p.m
This is a great opportuinity for volunteers, student and/or their parents to continue "Coming Together and Growing Together"!

Additionally, we will continue to have both Tech Club – Tuesdays 7:00-8:00 p.m. and Art Club – Mondays 5:45-7:15 p.m. throughout the summer and encourage our youth members and volunteers to continue attending.

Our students are currently vying for a seat on the bus to Great America. There are just 3 weeks left in the tutoring sessions and only 10 students are poised to get on the bus. The only requirement for students to go to Great America is that they show up at Cabrini Connections as normal and sign into SVHATS. Its too easy to not make it. By signing into SVHATS over the next 3 weeeks all current enrolled students have an opportunity to go.

SVHATS Revisited

In our efforts to better improve communication between students, volunteers and staff Cabrini Connections instituted SVHATS (Student and Volunteer History & Tracking System) in 2003. Since that SVHATS has proven to a an invaluable tool for gathering important information concerning the needs and wants of our volunteers and students.

To assist those who have expressed a problem finding the SVHATS hyperlink we have enhanced the lettering on the sidebar menu in both the volunteer and student section of the Cabrini Connections website. This enhancement although small will help as a visual reminder to our members to sign on to SVHATS everytime they log onto our site.

Additionally we have modified the "Weekly Reflection Sheet"; we changed the 5 points awarded to the student based on the volunteer signing in before 6:05pm to 5 points awarded for the volunteer signing onto SVHATS. We will also include a section in our Volunteer Weekly Newsletter that will reflect how many students and volunteers signed onto SVHATS the previous week.

We appreciate everyone who uses the SVHATS tool and encourage others to use it more often.

The 15th birthday of the web browser.

Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first web browser on a NeXT computer, called WorldWideWeb, finishing the first version on Christmas day, 1990. He released the program to a number of people at CERN in March, 1991, introducing the web to the high energy physics community, and beginning its spread.

In an article in the MorningSun from last week. The authors wrote "no other group is as entrenched in that technology as teens, who were just being born when that first Web browser came to be and were in first grade when the first Palm Pilot went on the market.

In most cases teens are using the media for social networking or to download music or for gaming. Prior to the Spring break it would be a good idea if both students and their mentors would consider exchanging not only email addresses but also social networking information as well.

As you know our technology goal at Cabrini Connections is to encourage a culture of learning among our students and volunteers and to further this culture of learning by teaching students and volunteers how to effectively use the Internet for learning and collaboration.

This week during the celebration of the teen years of web browsers would be an excellent time to help achieve part of goal by communicating with your student or tutor over the Spring break.

Building Blocks for Character

Positive Character is not something that a child is born with, it has to be taught. Children are constantly learning. They learn when we sit down and teach them, and they learn by watching others. Every influence they are exposed to has an impact, whether they observe their parents calmly discussing issues in the household, or they sit in front of the television watching violence. These influences shape their character.
As adults, we learn that to be successful in life we have to have mulitfacetted characters. WE don’t treat our spouses like we do our coworkers and we don’t treat our coworkers the same as we treat our friends. We must work to help our students apply these principles to their own lives now to begin to prepare them for a successful future. Many times a young person will tell you that acting respectful isn’t part of their character that they’d feel phony.
We have to remind them that there persona has to be multidimensional in order to make it in life. They can’t treat their mothers and fathers the way they do their friends on the street or they wouldn’t have a successful relationship with their parents, the same in school they shouldn’t treat their school time as they would their time in the streets, or they won’t have a successful chance at an education.
Self- Control... Honesty... Respect. These are all character traits that must be learned, we all know what kind of world we live in... but they can live in a better world.
It is so important to establish a foundation for excellence by teaching right from wrong and positive ways to deal with conflict in our lives. It is a given that every child born will face conflicts and have to make choices on a daily basis. If we can give them the tools they will need to be able to weigh their choices and choose to act in a positive manner, then they will have that foundation to be upright, moral citizens in the societies of tomorrow.

Connecting with our teens

These days, teens are growing up in a digitized and exciting ad world where bands promotes their iPods, McDonald's gets them to see Star Wars and an EverQuest II video game delivers them Pizza Hut. But with all these branded entertainment campaigns, what's working and what is doomed to turn off the savvy teen today?

1. Know what's hot.Teens are passionate about the following: Electronics and entertainment; iPod accessories; Target, the place to be seen; NetFlix, which is gaining momentum over Blockbuster; "American Idol", the only must-see TV show for teens.

2. Pick music over film any day. Music is something that does not have a shelf life of three weeks. Looking at music versus films, films are great, but there is a buzz about a film for three weeks and then it goes away. The buzz about an album that can last for a year or more.

3. Turn off the TV. TV is something that is in the background for teens as they are IM'ing with friends or doing other things. TV is "there" and present, and is something they pay attention to, but it does not define who they are.

4. Get into their social networks. 89% of the 200 kids surveyed by Buzz Marketing Group said they were fine when friends send them info about products through "My Space", but on the flip side, 92% of them were not fine when advertised to directly on "My Space".

5. Integrate causes that matter. Cause marketing is very important to teens. They care about changing and improving the world for the better.

6. Let them explore and discover. Wells calls teens the "Google Generation" because "Google" is more than a search to them. It's a window to things that they may not have gotten to so easily before.

7. Give them the tools to customize and document. Young people are really big on owning their own universe, being able to document it and share it with friends, which is why uploading photos or writing music are big trends.

8. Keep them communicating and connecting. Teens are creating their own community or "pods," as they're called. Instead of just having a big group of trendy friends, young people exist in their own "pods," mixing and mingling.

9. Find them on their cell phones. Since teens are on their cell phones more than ever, you can move a lot of her traditional research practices to cell phone based.

10. Be funny, cool and on the Internet. The company called "Myspace" is a great example. Teens sent its sites around to their friends right away, because it was the funniest thing they had seen.

DIY (Do It Yourself)

The do-it-yourself mentality is one of the things that built this country, and it is most certainly still deeply embedded into the fabric of American sensibilities. FedEx was dreamed up by a college kid. Apple Computer started out as a pet project of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs that they birthed in Jobs’ garage, and Google was founded in a dorm room by a couple of grad students from Stanford University. The list of spunky and successful startups goes on and on. Do-it-yourself projects (DIY for short) have been brewing in garages, basements, and college dorm rooms for years. It was inevitable that these ideas found their way onto Web sites dedicated to DIY projects of all types, and the sites feed the growing legions of people searching the Internet for answers on how to do everything from knitting to building a computer to home remodeling. There is even a man whose DIY project is being considered the first cure for cancer. There is a bevy of interesting, wildly entertaining, and even mischievous Web sites out there that offer articles, instructions, and video of DIY projects. Have you ever wondered how to make your own solar-powered bicycle? Or wanted some creative ideas for entertaining kids at a party? Or tried to figure out how to fix your car without sending it to a repair shop? The answers are out there. Here are a few I've come across... http://www.instructables.com/ http://www.wikihow.com/Main-Page http://www.makezine.com/ http://www.diyhappy.com/

Cabrini Connection's College Application Fund

Please consider giving to the Cabrini Connections College Application Fund.

While students from families of modest means know that it costs a lot to attend college, the expense involved in applying often comes as a surprise. And the cost will increase in March when the price of the SAT Reasoning Test (formerly the SAT I) rises from $29.50 to $41.50 because a writing component is being added. Families know that the senior year of high school is not only stressful, but expensive, and unless families have done a great job of saving and planning, it puts them in a real pinch.

The cost of applying to and choosing a college can range from several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on the decisions students and families make. There are fees for everything: applications, SAT or ACT exams; mailing extra copies of all those scores to schools; and even taking Advanced Placement tests. Students applying to highly selective colleges often take three to five AP tests in the hope they will score high enough to enhance their academic profile and earn college credits.

Application process can add up Not counting the cost of campus visits, the tab for a hypothetical student: Applications to 6 colleges Typical fees: $50 (as high as $75) 6 x $50 = $300 Take SAT Reasoning Test twice Test fee: $41.50 (after the price risesin March) 2 x $41.50 = $83 Take ACT once, with writing option Test fee: $42 (Many students take both the SAT and ACT) 1 x $42 = $42 Send scores to 6 colleges No extra charge for up to four colleges, $7 for each additional school. 2 x $7 = $14 Take Subject Tests Test fee: $17 to register, $8 a test. (Many highly selective colleges require three SAT Subject Tests — formerly the SAT II) 3 x $8 + $17 = $41 Take four Advanced Placement exams Test fee: $82 4 x $82 = $328 Source: USA TODAY research Total = $808

Workforce and Career Information

In my last post I discussed information I learned at our Tutor Mentor Leadership Conference. Although, all of the workshops and handouts were equally informative, I feel the most relevant to our goals was “Gateway to Quality Career & Workforce Information."

As I related in my previous post, here our students, as well as, their parents, our volunteers and their friends can sign on and discover invaluable information about the career types, availability, expectations, knowledge path as well as a dissection of other careers that fall within the same description and learning requirements. I would suggest that all of our mentors sign onto the site to help our kids see the steps the should take find the career path that suits them best.

However, I want to further emphasize the important tools that can be found on their site. The site is broken down into multiple levels but the most important and useful information can be found on the first page. It's broken down into 5 elements; Career Resources (ICRN), Labor Market Information Source (LMI Source), Workforce Info Center (WIC), Kids and Careers and ICOMPASS.

The first portal is the ICOMPASS link. This link is their online training tool that will help you better understand and use the workforce, labor market and career information. Or as they call it, "Your Guide to Illinois Workforce, Career and Labor Market Information. Upon entering the site you are invited to take their online course designed to help you use the the IDES trio of economy-related sites. You will be asked to register, once registered you will be given a list of training resources based on the available data bases related to the information you're training on. There are two types of registration; On Demand- for those who only need portions of the training for their personal knowldged and Competency Certificate- for those interested in completing the whole training. These includes tests and a certificate denoting successful completion of training. I recommend that if you and your student sign up you take the latter level training so that they have a certificate as reward for their efforts.

Once you've completed the training or if you opt to forego the training it's time to get into the nitty gritty of the site. At this time it would probably be helpful for the students to click into the Kids and Careers section of the site. Here you will find a PDF "IDES_kids_and_careers" which discuss various aspects of linking a kid to a career. They list "Best Bet" occupations and salaries as they relate to career choices, Career Planning steps, The educational requirement of various jobs and important targets and goals for students as they begin thinking of their career choices.

The next component of the site, Career Resources; offers a variety of career exploration products for elementary, middle and high school students as well as adults. Upon clicking you are given access to information on occupations education and financial aid, job search hints and a resume writer with links to employers nationwide, self-assessment tools and storage to keep the information gained here. It includes Career Click to see job titles along with educational requirements, skills needed for the job and predictions on whether these jobs will be available in the future. There are other training resources in the training publication section and CIS junior which is a must for any of our students planning for a possible career. Here they can match their intersest to occupations, find out about wages and what they'd do on a particular job and learn what to study to prepare for their future.

The other two components, LMI which is a database containing complete labor market reports, data and publications which can be viewed online or downloaded and WIC a portal that includes current and historical workforce and occupational information for job seekers, local workforce planning boards and economic development professionals. I strongly incourage our volunteers to link into the site and become familiar with its' offerings so we can be better armed to assist our students when they start asking about and looking for work. It's even a good way to answer the ever popular question, "why do I have to learn math when I really want to be a Fireman?"

Tutor Menor Leadership Conference

I’m at the last day of our Tutor Mentor Leadership Networking Conference. I’m currently attending a workshop entitled “How Business Leaders Can and Should Participate in Charitable Organizations, led by Steven Miller of Legacy Mortgage Corporation.

His approach to engaging new donors and volunteers is unique in that he goes through his checkbook and everybody he pays regularly he tells them it’s their responsibility as citizens to give back to the community, even if the community they’re giving to is not theirs. His discussion ranged from how he got involved with our
non-profit organization to how he cajoles his staff and friends to give or work with our organization.

Although two of our keynote speakers were ex-NFL players, one young man really stood out for me, Marcues Sullivan. During the course of his speech he explained how although he came from an adverse background, it was through the benefit of mentoring that he was able to expand horizons and that there was more to life than the small piece of real estate he called his neighborhood. One particular quote of his stood out to me, “no successful person that he knows of got there without a mentor!” Those words ring true and give meaning to all we do here at Cabrini Connections.

To me the most relevant workshop was presented by LaMarr Johnson of The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES). He introduced us to the departments’ new “Gateway to Quality Career & Workforce Information” portal on their website. Here our students, as well as, their parents, our volunteers and their friends can sign on and discover invaluable information about the career types, availability, expectations, knowledge path as well as a dissection of other careers that fall within the same description and learning requirements. I would suggest that all of our mentors sign onto the site to help our kids see the steps the should take find the career path that suits them best.

Tech Update

Recently while compiling SVHATS login data, I noticed an alarming trend. While the student login and feedback numbers where pretty steady at a low rate of 24-25 logins the Volunteer login rate has dropped drastically, it has gone from 28 at it’s peak to 12. It is important for both the student and the volunteer to use SVHATS as it helps us to understand the relationship and progress of the student, volunteer pair.

Some of our volunteers like Alexandria Hill and students like Vontesha Stanfield has signed onto SVHATS every week they’re here. If anyone has troubles with signing in or have forgotten their password or login please don’t hesitate to ask.

The Tech Club is still looking for new student leaders to join up. Our computers have been loaded with both Flash and Photoshop software applications. Already some of the students have learned to create animated GIFs and how to remove backgrounds from images. Once the club members have developed competency with graphic and picture manipulation we plan to start working on learning the Flash product. Our end goal is to have students capable of creating dynamic graphic design elements, flash movies and websights. We welcome all Volunteers and Students who want to join.

Remember September

Well, we just finished the orientation presentations here at Cabrini Connections. We put together two different PowerPoint presentations, one for the Volunteers and one for the Students that outlined the roles and responsibilities of both parties in the program. During the presentation we made informal introductions to the students and volunteers. We discussed the various programs offered at Cabrini Connections and provided information about Tutor/Mentor Connection, our knowledgebase of all things related to tutoring and mentoring.
In between the creating the power point slides and doing the actual orientation I worked on some of the projects that needed attention. We have a program called SVHATS (Student & Volunteer History And Tracking System) which we use for tracking the students day to day activities here at Cabrini Connections. It had some broken links and outdated email addresses that needed correcting. I also attempted to work on our Cmap program, to no avail. One of the pages has several broken links on it. I wasn’t able to fix it so, I did what every good techie does in times of trouble; I reached out to tech support.

During our presentations, I was afforded the opportunity to reflect on a story I read in the paper one year. It was about a young girl in 8th grade that had lost her 4 brothers and 2 sisters to street violence. When asked to write about her plans for the future, she wrote a paper that described her funeral arrangements. It was a very telling story of how youth, living in poverty see their future as hopeless. It is stories like this and others I’ve come across that have led me to this undertaking. I believe we can make a difference, if we but try.

We have some very interesting events coming up in the next few weeks. There’s a fundraiser coming up on October 19, 2007 called the Martini Madness, the other event is a Tutor Training Conference September 29, 2007, we’re looking forward to big turnouts at each event. This would be a great time for anyone interested in learning what we do or anyone interested in finding ways to help to get more information.

I need help for this operation to be successful

Well, they asked me to perform brain surgery the other day. I’m not a surgeon mind you; actually, I’m not even a doctor. However, I’m a pretty bright guy and I know where the brain is, I even know anecdotally the areas of the brain; frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital lobes and cerebellum. Still that wasn’t enough information to actually perform the surgery, so I decided to do some research and reading. I started with reading up on basic surgery procedures, turns out every surgery has its on modality and methodology.
Still undaunted, I went on; a cut, here a slice there I really felt like I could do this. After my general research I decided it was time to concentrate on the brain. Here to I found there were various manners in which to proceed depending on the reason for the procedure. So I thought it was time to ask, what the specific reason for the operation was. Turns out it was to change the behavior and expectations of the patient. This helped a lot because now I knew I was to operate on the frontal lobe. So, based on my reading, I would have to remove a large section of the front of the scull. Well, with my new found knowledge and vicarious experience I was ready to move forward. I assembled an expert team of other non-medical personal who just happened to be really, really bright and set about to perform the surgery.
Unfortunately, the operations weren’t a success and the outcomes not what I expected. Of the patients some seemed to have no change, some became vegetative and the others turned into monsters of a sort, acting out in ways I would never have imagined possible. It turns out, I didn’t have enough information about the nature of the patient or the problem, I wasn’t sufficiently trained to alleviate the suffering of the patient or the problem and none of the people I enlisted to help were really interested in the patient or the problem; they just wanted to be able to say they assisted in a major surgery.
It turns out you have to be a dedicated, trained surgeon in order to have any chance of performing a successful operation. You need to fully understand the patient and the problem and how to garner your expected outcomes. Your colleagues have to be an equally dedicated, well informed group of people whose goals are to accomplish the same outcome and not just bask in the limelight of being on the scene.
This same notion holds true for performing the necessary operation to change the outcomes of our underserved, economically distressed youth. It’s not enough to have an idea of the problem facing those of us living in poverty, attending our failing schools. We all have anecdotal evidence of the cause and potential cure for what ails them but without the fundamental research and understanding the real life person whose outcome we wish to change, we only set ourselves up for unintended consequences and little or no effect on change. Even more important, it’s not enough to just show up or just show up once. To affect a change in the life of a person one has to make a decision to be there for the long haul to be there when no one is watching with a hands on approach to working with the person whose life you’re trying to effect.
Currently at Cabrini Connections we are in our Volunteer Recruitment phase for the new school year. Anyone with the time and inclination is welcome to come to our location and become a volunteer tutor, mentor or leader. Or, you may want to consider volunteering at a location that is closer to you or back in your old neighborhood or anywhere that you know of a need. We have a Program Locator on our website that can direct you to entities in many of the areas throughout Chicago. We even ask for people who know of a program that’s not listed to reach out to us so we can add them to our database, there is no fee or charge associate with utilizing or being listed on our system. If time is a problem we, like any non-profit, are always in need of donations, whether it’s equipment, dollars or even advice we look forward to any and all participation.

Get in where you fit in

“There is no possibility to solve it before we are brave enough to face it.” That quote is from my colleague at Cabrini Connection, Paul Wei’s blog. He was talking about his experiences here in Chicago and comparing the things he’s seen and places he’s been to what goes on in his country, China. In one excerpt, he talked about visiting the Tribune Freedom Museum. He stated, “I was a bit confused when I came to the name of the museum. The concept of freedom is a very abstract idea in my country. Common people never talk about it, and when the right of freedom is violated, people don't even notice it. It just seems like the word "freedom" mostly appears in poems or fictions.”
He went further to discuss visits to the Art Museum and Navy Pier and talked about the benefits of having cultural experiences as a child to carry with one throughout their lives. He then discussed the issues of their education being “score” based and not experience based and how poverty further destroys the opportunities youth have in his county to become successful, culturally aware and free.
His words gave me pause, it seemed a lot of the same issues he was discussing about his country and his experiences could be summed up in the life experiences of many people in our own country. How race and poverty often determine where you live, and how where you live often determines your educational opportunities, and your education often determines your career, which then determines yet again where you live. All those lost or gained opportunities then determine the life we live and the lessons we pass down to future generations of ourselves.
It’s up to us, all of us, to make the changes necessary in our society to combat the root cause of these problems. There’s a saying, “get in where you fit in,” that provides insight into what needs to be done to make the positive changes necessary to change the outcomes of our lives. Showing up is never enough, in school, at work, in politics and in life; just showing up has little or no impact on our desired results. All you have to do is ask yourself, what can I do? Can I spend time mentoring an at risk youth, can I take the time to tutor a youth struggling through school or can I make a donation so that those that do have the time have the resources and opportunities to provide them.
We don’t have the luxury of time to point out the problem and discuss solutions, now is the time to commit to solutions. Get in where you fit in or face the fact that you are the problem.

Dead Diamonds

We don’t have to ask ourselves why there are so many children being killed in Chicago, we know why. Poverty, poor education, lack of substantive opportunity, historically underserved communities. The only real question we have to ask is, what can I do about it? We have these untapped minds and bodies (throwaway children) going off with no direction, it’s no wonder why their life path often leads them to drugs, violence, imprisonment and sometimes premature death.
To me they, the neighborhoods, represent untapped diamond mines and our children are diamonds in the rough. The ones we read about in the paper I call Dead Diamonds. The is a lot of information currently online and in the paper about Blood Diamonds and the hardships faced in Africa over the mining and eventual theft of their natural resources. However the only time we talk about the hardships facing our children is when we read of another one dying senselessly and the other one who killed him.
Not too long ago, I came to the conclusion that something had to be done. I had already raised my children in quant Fairfax County, Virginia. I believe I made good choices in their rearing and it proved true as they transitioned into adulthood. My children are emotionally stable, mentally stable and successful in their careers. It is my estimation that what got them there were positive role models, real opportunities and access to technology. With that in mind, I set about trying to make a difference in other children’s lives. You all know the story, I came to Chicago, opened a technology center in an underserved community and engaged the youth and other disenfranchised citizens with information, training and technology that they would otherwise not have access to.
Although I was able to touch a few lives, as one man, I didn’t have the resources or time to make a big enough difference. I ran out of money and soon my store had to close. But during the time I was in business, I saw the results of my efforts flourish in the children who had an opportunity to see something different. My efforts pale in comparison to the years of work put in by one Dan Bassill. For over 30 years, Dan has championed the cause for tutors and mentors for “our” children. Dan is white and somewhat amazing. The programs he has put together, Cabrini Connections has impacted the lives of over 4000 children from Cabrini Greens and the surrounding area and Tutor/Mentor Connections has provided services and information to tens of thousands of children in poverty stricken communities. Cabrini Connections is were we run our tutoring and mentoring program and the Tutor/Mentor Connection has resources that support your own involvement in volunteer based tutoring/mentoring can provides valuable information for anyone interested in doing the same in Chicago, or in any other city in the world.
Please take the opportunity to consider what you can do in order to stop the flow of Dead Diamonds in our streets. Trust me, as one person, you can make a difference. We need your support, if you have time please consider volunteering some of it to Tutor and Mentor a child in your area or here. If you don’t have the time, consider giving a donation to one of the programs in your area or here. In lieu of either just give some consideration to the many children who are in trouble and need help. Talk to those you know who can help and ask them to give a hand up or even a handout.

Week 2 crashes in.

Well, this week has started with a bang, of sorts… When we walked in Monday morning the entire system had crashed. It is quite evident the great need that non-profits subsist under. Because I’m a technician I was able to troubleshoot the problem fairly quickly but due to my lack of knowledge of the infrastructure of our system I was hard pressed to identify what to do about it. I had to call in our local volunteer technician who was instrumental in the original setup. Poor guy spent his entire work day here trying to get us up and running. By the way if there are any good Windows NT-2000-2003 Server Technicians within eyeshot of this posting, we could always use a few more volunteers.
Which is a good segue into another topic… The amount and level of help we need. It seems we have a problem in 3 areas when it comes to our foundation. One is getting committed Tutor/Mentors that are willing to stick with the children for the long haul, our goal is to take them from 7th grade through college to a career. That’s about a 10 to 15 year commitment and everybody understands that life sometimes gets in the way. The problem is getting the right volunteer for either working directly with the children or working with the center to maintain our systems and services. Furthermore, there’s something to be said for having a role model from your own cultural background; information seems more relevant and cogent from that perspective. Finally, as with all non-profits, money is the wobbling 3rd leg of the stool. Anyone who has ever been to, through or around Cabrini Greens knows the reason we exist and the depth of our need.
However, our programs goes further Cabrini Connections is the program we run to tutor and mentor children in this area. We take the best practices and other useful information we’ve gathered along the way and put it in a knowledgebase to share with other service providers and tutoring programs.

End of Week 1

Well, I’m finishing up my first week here at Cabrini Connections; it has been very interesting to say the least. There is a wealth of information on our website to read through. I plan to encourage everyone I meet to take the time to go online and check it out.
Earlier in the week my boss Dan and I went to an Alderman meeting in Ward 7 and met with Alderwoman Sandi Jackson to discuss our program and our overarching goals of providing information to the public on how to broaden avenues of mentoring and tutoring throughout the city. I was surprised and happy to find the alderwoman so interested in what my boss had to say that she asked him to speak on the panel impromptu.
My boss ever the stalwart champion for his cause took the opportunity and ran with it. His goal of reaching, teaching and learning from as many non-profits, parents, teachers, mentors and kids as he can in this city has now become mine.
We have systems and applications in place that seem to try and cover all possibilities in regard to providing user information; SVATS, White Boards, Program Locators, Strategy Maps, and all sorts of other information resources. I’ve met all the staff; Ana, Nicole and Toni and some of the volunteers; Rebecca (video club) and Shannyn and Jen (writing club) and even some students. I believe I’m off to a good start.

My first few days

Hello all, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Keith Smith, recently hired at Cabrini Connection as the eLearning and Technology Coordinator. I've been a technology generalist for some years now and ever an advocate for bridging the digital divide and making technology access and availability a primary resource in the education of our youth. During the interview process my new boss Dan asked me to prepare a flash presentation outlining my first 30 days at CC, including ways I will help achieve our Technology and eLearning goals. That can be seen here. www.worldroad.com/cc In following my plan I am currently learning all that I can about Cabrini Connection and the Tutor/Mentor Connection and will be soon sharing my knowledge here on my blog and in other forums across the net.



It is my goal to support the advancement of knowledge of technology from fundamental skills to advance application understanding and usage. Our center is a place where users attend workshops, schedule tutoring and make use of the vast array of tutorials, applications and other software to promote their learning in preparation for success in the Information Age.

I look forward to advancing ideas and opportunities not only for the youth who come to our center but also youth, mentors, tutors and peer groups who can take advantage of our successes and learn from our missteps to provide a better future all who need just a hand up in order to be succeessful in the career path of their chosing.



I want our youth to believe in themselves, believe in us and believe in their future.