Thank you to all who have signed up for this amazing process. So many of the mentors in this group have either been mentors or mentees in this program and believe it what it can be. We are so happy to be continuing George Couros’ work and vision through this program. We will use his first email from the first year for this week.

I have had a few more mentees interested in being paired up with a mentor. If you are interested in taking on a second mentee, please let me know and I will pair you accordingly.

Happy Thanksgiving to our US participants, and have a wonderful week!

Theresa 🙂

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I want to thank everyone for signing up and participating in the #SAVMP program and I am looking forward to seeing how this program unfolds.  There are definitely going to be some bumps during the year but the most important part of this is the connection that you make with one another over the upcoming year.

Just to clarify, this is NOT about leaders using social media.  It is however the vehicle that we will use to connect and share our learning which will hopefully influence some of the things that are happening in schools that are connected during this process.

As the year progresses, we are going to have some Google Hangouts with people on various topics to spark conversation.  I will also be sending out emails to participants to hopefully help out with some ideas as the year goes.  The focus is on your conversations and connections that you create in your pairings.  The other element is openly sharing what we learn with others so that many people can benefit from this program.

As we go into the first week, here are some things that are suggested you do (#4 is a MUST):

1. Make sure you have a Twitter account with an updated profile.

2. Set up a Voxer account if you haven’t already – you will find that it is an invaluable part of collaborating.
3. Join the SAVMP Remind group by texting @savmp to 81010 or https://www.remind.com/join/savmp.

4. Start a blog if you haven’t. (To make it a “blog/portfolio”, watch this video).  I suggest reading this article from Dean Shareski on blogging and the impact it has on teaching.

5. Mentors…please send an introductory email to your “mentees”.  Share a little bit about yourself and connect with them.

6. Mentors and mentees please share your blogs with one another.

7. I encourage you in the next two weeks to write a blog post on the topic of, “Why do I lead?”, or “Why I am an educator?”.  The focus here is that you look at yourself as a leader before you look at who you are leading.  In the title of your blog post, I encourage you to throw the hashtag #SAVMP at the end of your title so that when others share it on Twitter they will see the hashtag.

8. Mentors…I encourage you to comment on your “mentee” blogs.

Obviously none of this is mandatory, but the more you put into the process, the more you will get out of it.

I hope that you all enjoy connecting with one another and that you learn a great deal for this process.  I will not be sending emails out once a week but will share from time to time.  This is meant to be an informal process and the real work will be done between the mentors and mentees.

Thanks again for taking part in this program