Third Meeting----Something had to go Wrong

Mentor: Keith Dello Russo
Mentee: Jay Lottes
Date: 4/30/09
Room(s): 82 and 83



1. What was our goal for the night?

The goal for session three was to bump the technology jargon and applications up a notch. Jay wanted his powerpoints to become multimedia. So, we were going to embed a Youtube video into a power point for offline use. I had taught myself from a Youtube video how to do this last year so I thought that this would be a cakewalk from the tech side. The part that I might need to have to worry about would be the mentoring side. Jay as much as he wants to do this gets lost pretty fast when the technology starts flying. This is not meant to be a put down. This is form eight years of knowing him. Jay even makes fun of the fact that he has a masters in technology but is very basic in his knowledge and application of technology.

2. Do you feel like we met the goal? Why or Why not?

Like the title reads....It just wasn't a cakewalk that day. I had an extended prep that day due to star testing so I was going to set Jay's computer up with everything so that after school I could shorten the learning curve and confusion if I had a file converter already downloaded and such. This was the dream. I was working on his school desktop MAC. I am not that comfortable on MAC's and it took me about an hour to realize that the file converter that I wanted to use was for PC's. (SUPER is the app.) The the file down-loader site would not "save target as" (like it does when I am at home and using it). So know I do not have a file down-loader or a file converter. I am at square one and my two hours of extra prep are almost up. So I switch to his school laptop which is a PC. I spend some time and find a file down loader that will take Youtube videos and "save target as" (KEEPVID). So two hours in and classes start. Fast forward after school and now working with Jay. I try to explain the problems and they are clearly going over his head, so I break down the fact the Youtube videos cannot be directly embedded into PowerPoint. It requires that the file be converted to a different format. After slowing down he grasped what has to be accomplished but seems a little apprehensive of what seems like a lot of steps just to put a video into a PowerPoint. I tell him that words are more complicated that the actual process. Look at the clock all of this is more than an hour and really I have spent over three hours that day and we didn't get a video into a PowerPoint. Mission failed.

3. If the goal was not met, what could be done to help to attain the goal?

I really should have taken his laptop and set up the pathway to get to the goal. I thought that really I could have everything set up and ready to go. Platform conflicts I did not really think anything about, they just were roadblocks for me. I never really thought that an application wouldn't work the same. So I really should have do some legwork before had to really lower his anxiety. Jay saw me getting frustrated bu not finding the right applications and this raised his anxiety level because for him I am the one that is supposed to know this stuff. Jay questioned whether he should be trying this or not and that did not make me feel good as a mentor.

4. How do you feel about the process in general?

The process is still overall very pleasant. Jay works well with me but this time I had to take a little more control over the process and I really feel that the process is meant foe the mentee. It wasn't real practical to have him navigating to find application that he knows nothing about, so he kinda watched me this session and that could not have been very fun.


5. What do you feel should happen at the next session?

well the final session goal should be to get a video downloaded in a PowerPoint and step through the process with Jay and then have him do one all on his own.