Mentor Center

Learning Systems & Technologies Department
BBN Technologies
GTE Internetworking
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Contact: Gail Pierson gpierson@bbn.com

It started with a sixth-grade English teacher who was looking for a way for his students to receive mentoring from outside sources via the World Wide Web. As he worked with staff from BBN's National School Network, his idea evolved into a Web-based application to support telementoring in K-12 classrooms. Today, through Mentor Center™, students can post their work on the Web and receive constructive feedback from volunteer mentors around the globe. Their instructor is able to supervise, manage, and guide this safe, password-protected online environment.

Mentor Center™, formerly NetPals, grew from research funded by the National Science Foundation and is part of the National School Network Exchange. This network is a community of more than 500 schools, museums, businesses, and government agencies dedicated to enhancing curriculum through the Internet. It was developed and is currently managed by BBN Systems and Technologies, part of GTE Internetworking.

The online environment of Mentor Center™ allows the sharing of text, graphics, sound, and Web pages, thus allowing mentoring relationships for art, science, and Web design students, as well as adult training and professional workshops. When the students' work is completed, at the discretion of the instructor, the student/mentor process can be viewed in a written performance gallery for online visitors.

To set up the project, teachers enter mentors and students into respective "pools" of names and online addresses. The teacher then matches mentors with students he or she thinks would fit together well. The Mentor Center™ allows for several variations of relationships -- one student to work with one mentor, one student to work with several mentors, or several students to work with one mentor.

Once students have been set up with a mentor and given a writing assignment by their teachers, they can use their own word processor to do their initial writing. They can then paste their work into a form on the Mentor Center™ Web site. The Mentor Center™ software automatically sends an e-mail message to the mentors telling them that student writing is waiting for them to read, and where to find it on the Web. The mentors access the student work and post feedback, which is automatically returned to the students, and optionally, to the students' teacher.

Marketed through the National School Network Exchange, Mentor Center™ is available direct to schools, school districts, and participating businesses. The software tools required to use Mentor Center™ are publicly available at a reasonable cost, so once connected, classroom teachers will find using Mentor Center™ economical to fit within tight budget requirements. Specifically, a classroom will need a graphical Web browser such as Netscape Navigator 3.0 or Internet Explorer 3.0, and an e-mail program and account. Word-processing software is also helpful but not crucial. Students and teachers need to have some skill in using computers, e-mail programs, and a Web browser, and they need to be trained to use the Mentor Center™ software.

Through Mentor Center™, teachers can use the World Wide Web to extend the walls of their classrooms to include people from the outside world. Those of us who are interested in creating collaborative learning environments will enjoy using Mentor Center™ to link our students with skilled people from the community who are interested in mentoring young learners from their own computer at home or in the office.

Go to index of project descriptions posted from May 1997 to June 2000