Chapter 11: Lessons Learned

As mentoring programs in technology become more common in universities and K-12 environments, it is important that we learn from the work of others. In this book, we have described the implementation of one of the oldest technology mentoring programs in the nation. (Each of the stories told in the book highlights significant aspects of our mentoring program as it has played out in individual cases.) Taken together, the stories suggest themes and lessons for building such programs. As indicated in Chapters 2 and 3, many of these lessons are reinforced by both change theory and the emerging literature on mentoring programs. In this chapter, using elements of Rogers’ (2003) diffusion theory described by Sahin in Chapter 2, and major themes from the literature summarized in Chapter 3, we will highlight and generalize the main findings from our work and provide suggestions for the future.