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SNA for May Conference -

Katie and Anne,

Let's divide the conversation into three parts. In the area where you've posted your first work, let's keep talking about ways to display SNA info, and challenges you  might be having. Let's also try to recruit others, since it looks like Jonathan won't be able to stay involved.

In this discussion let's talk about how SNA can be used for the conference in May. I'd like to be able to create a presentation/workshop, showing what the potential for SNA is, and how it helps us show the growth of the network being supported by the conferences and the T/MC.  Valdis had some suggestions on this, which I encourage him to repeat here.

Then, in a third disucssion, let's talk about how we might map the networks for our teens. I'll copy some of what you wrote into that one, as a starting point, then offer my thoughts. 

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  • Kalyani has created a set of maps showing the participation of the May 2008 conference. Please read the article she wrote to show what these maps mean. Also read the article I wrote on my blog to show the connection between the SNA maps and GIS maps, and to illustrate how these demonstrate the role T/MC plays.

    Kalyani and I talked about "next steps" and I think we should map the Nov. 08 conference, then create a set of maps that combine May and Nov 08. That will enable us to begin to show repeat participation. After that we'd map May 09, then Nov. 09, then a combination of 08 and 09, showing the combined weight of four conferences. If others can help do that work, that would be great.

    At the same time, I'd like you all to work together to create a survey that could be posted on the T/MC conference site, or given to participants of future conferences, to help us understand the way they are connecting to each other as a result of the conferences and the T/MC. Some questions might be
    a) what workshop did you attend (which would tell us what speakers they connected with)
    b) who did you connect with after the conference as a result of first meeting them at the conference

    It would be great if we could get some suggestions on questions from Valdis or other SNA experts. However, I think that as you build the maps, you may come up with your own questions.

    Our aim in this stage of map making is to demonstrate the value and attract other volunteers, donors, graduate students, college faculty, and others to help us keep expanding what the T/MC does to help tutor/mentor programs grow. The use of SNA and GIS is an application of tools to help understand our impact, and to help programs expand their own networks of support, so each can do better work.
    • I have created a set of maps to analyze the November 08 conference and to compare it with the May 08 conference. The maps show geographical distribution of the organizations with respect to T/MC and various attributes such as programs, speakers and relative distance are mapped in those plots. Here is the link to the blog http://kalyanimisra.blogspot.com/2010/10/analysis-of-november-08-co....
  • Kalyani sent me the jpg below, showing the May 2008 conference participation. She said "I have created a inFlow map for the May 08 conference based on Katie's excel sheet. I feel that the map is still not very clear, as we are representing large amount of data. I have used the organizations as the nodes and they are linked to T/MC through the conferences. I have numbered the organizations instead of using the organization names to make the map look more clear. We can provide a list of organizations corresponding to the numbers on the map later. Let me know what do you think about the map."


    I have some ideas of how to tell the story of this conference, but I'd like to invite others to look at this and give their thinking first. Please post your suggestions.
  • Karina Walker and Bradley Troast have been hosting meetings with Chicago tutor/mentor programs. At the same time, Karina has been going through the Program Locator list and Links Library to update contact information on all programs. Since she and Bradley are new to T/MC (Bradley in 2nd year with us), they are expanding their own network, as they help other programs connect to each other.

    I'd like to have someone mapping the growth of Karina and Bradley's networks, using inFlow, to show how this expands from year to year, and to show how this results in more people taking part in the conferences or recruitment collaboration, working with us, or with each other.
  • I just posted a blog article on Ning with a map of conference participants that I created with Power Point. I have saved the list of attendees, as an Excel file, in the SNA Project file folder. Katie offered good suggestions for following up from the conference. Let's work on these. Let's also look for others who might offer their own time to help. There's lots that we could be mapping.
    • . Who were new people that you met at the Breakout Session? Please list. Please indicate if you have had any further contact with them.


      2. Did you have contact with anyone that attended the Breakout Session previously? And how closely connected were you on a scale of 1-4, 1 being that you have met, 2 you have had a small?

      _________________________________________ 1 2 3 4
      _________________________________________ 1 2 3 4
      _________________________________________ 1 2 3 4
      _________________________________________ 1 2 3 4

      I think this should provide us with the information to map the group
  • Unfortunately, I have had some last minute family obligations come up and I will not be able to be at the conference on Friday morning. I apologize for the late notice, but I'm kind of in a bind with my schedule this week and next.

    I think the outline of what to present looks good. I'd be happy to work on fleshing out a few areas and write up a narrative for someone to work from if that's helpful.
    Let me know what you need from me for Friday.

    I'm sorry for being so out of the loop as the conference approaches -- I'll do what I can over the next couple of days and will be able to refocus on this come mid-June.
    • Thanks Anne,

      If you can add anything to the handout I posted, please do and then email that to me, or repost it as a revision.

      We'll keep moving forward with this and do what we can as we have the time. One thing you and Katie might do is send an email blast out to Dominican to see if other students might want to attend that workshop and see what we are doing. We can give scholarships to anyone who wants to come. This is how Anne recruited you and maybe we can add a couple more people, or even some donors, over the summer.

      Dan
  • Dan and Anne,

    For the presentation next Friday, let's put together an outline on Ning. I realize that the total time slot is 70 minutes, but from the description I understand that we will be talking about more than simply the SNA initiative, but also the other computer-oriented programs, both mapping and otherwise, that Tutor/Mentor Connections is utilizing currently. Please correct me if this is wrong. How much time would you like to devote to the SNA portion. I think that talking for about 10 minutes seems appropriate, but we could go longer/shorter.

    Three areas I would like to talk about involving InFlow are:

    1. Mapping the network of volunteer organizations and it's potentials...
    -Showing how attending the conference increases the network of tutoring organizations, helping them to find ideas and solutions to problems, as well as other organizations that can work well together

    2. Mapping the students
    -I know we don't really have any of the these maps complete, but I think that showing the network that a student enters with and then the network that they exit with can help in multiple ways. On one hand it could help with fundraising as a visual example of the growth some of these children and teenagers are making. It can also be useful in determining what type of support network might need to be built up for each child, because they enter the program with individual histories.

    3. Show our small group maps as an example.

    Let me know what you think of this. Please add your own ideas and more information.

    Thanks!

    Katie
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