What is this project about?
Above are the steps that mentors and mentees will follow in the Transitions program, beginning with the design, creation and use of a mashup of global resources; continuing with an innovative Second Life curriculum; then on to real world service and impact. All steps will be focused through the interactive website at A Place For Dreams, and all web resources will be accessible from within Second Life.
1. Basic Communication Tools.
We are planning a mashup of global resources that will allow people anywhere in the world to find resources within one or two clicks; we'll provide a widget that can be places on many websites and that will pull together many sorts of resources. Our mentees (those seeking to redesign their lives) and their mentors (service learning students, technology volunteers, nonprofit staff and volunteers) will design and create the mashup based on needs.
2. Computer and Digital Literacy.
Our partners at CVM, Community Voicemail, will assist us in offering free email accounts as well as voicemail.
3. Life Skills Guides.
Service Learning students, mentees and other volunteers will locate or create downloadable documents that teach or explain important technology skills.
4.A Place For Dreams is the interactive website that focuses the various steps. Our partners at Vesuvius will assist us in linking Second Life with A Place For Dreams website. Mentors and mentees will return here to find the next steps.
Note: while all resources will be available from within Second Life, the steps after this one will center on Second Life, while steps 1-3 will additionally be available on as many websites as possible, so that as many people as possible can use them.
5.Envision a Home.
Centering on Second Life and making use of other tools as appropriate, we plan a curriculum that will include personal finances; sustainability; small business ethics and practices; and building in Second Life. Expert volunteers, curriculum designers, and volunteers and staff from our nonprofit partners Amoration, Bridges for Women and Floaters will teach along with service learning students. After completing the curriculum, mentees will design and build a home in Second Life while creating, with their mentors, a plan to start a virtual business aimed at helping them redesign their lives.
We are interested in finding out if redesigning one's life in a virtual world will make it easier to redesign one's life in the real world.
6.Build a Business.
Again centering on Second Life and making use of other tools as appropriate, mentor-mentee teams will begin to build virtual businesses. We are focusing on ensuring that the mentees will have sufficient training, education and now support so as to be able to succeed. Research indicates that those coming up out of poverty often feel that they lack sufficient opportunities and resources to succeed, even with training. We plan to offer those opportunities to our mentees, providing them with mentors (both service learning students and volunteers from the academic and technology communities) and with other resources, including funding.
7.Teach Skills.
As our mentees plan and build their businesses, they will give back to Transitions: A Place For Dreams by becoming mentors for those who follow them: they will teach the skills that they have learned.
We have seen that this model may lead to retention, an appreciation of what mentoring skills entail, and higher self-esteem and self-efficacy (one's belief that one can succeed.)
8. Service.
We will encourage our mentees to continue their schooling, will assist them in applying to the University if that becomes their goal, and will encourage them to complete the circle by taking service learning courses.
Additionally, we plan to draw some student mentors from a group of students who would themselves be eligible to become mentees, based on life history.