Another factor to consider is that this education strategy favors and encourages the development of the subject's autonomy in their learning process, as it enables them to responsibly and freely manage their studies and research while receiving accurate guidance, support in answering their questions and questions and return to evaluations in process. This autonomy, in turn, provides encouragement and increases self-esteem, opening the subject conditions to perceive capable of accomplishment at the personal and collective levels. However, as regards the relationship between learning, it should be noted that this education strategy does not include the motivation and competition that result from contact between people. The same goes for student-teacher interaction. The spontaneity ceases to exist.

This teaching strategy offers the mentor a new challenge: his method of "teaching" must meet the needs and expectations of the various participants. The mentor should also make an effort to understand the capacities and needs of the mentors without personal contact and direct working experience with the participants.

online mentoring is the best solution when the mentor and mentee cannot meet face to face.

The advantages are:

I believe, online mentoring could had helped me a lot, when – at the beginning of my career as a teacher- I was working in a small isolated island of the Aegean Sea. 

Ideally, as @ Maria Cersosimo, Italy wrote, “I would prefer a mixed solution. I mean online sessions mixed up with real meeting. They will help not to lose the human touch”

I also agree with @Carmina, Portugal who wrote in the padlet, “There's always the problem of the equipment you have to overcome, but it's a great principle to adopt in a mentoring relationship”. 

Besides the points Rachel explains in her video, the different opportunities to use mentoring online, I have some other ideas to share.  

From my point of view online mentoring will work better if you have had the opportunity to meet before the whole process, if you have built some kind of relationship before you start the mentoring relationship.  That is ideally, of course.   

I find mentoring online specially appropriate for teachers in remote areas or locations where contact with mentors maybe difficult, and isolated teachers find it difficult to get answers to their many questions and everyday doubts when starting teaching mainly. 

I fing online mentoring in these cases as almost a salvation board, something you can hung on to.  

Of course, if you train mentors to mentor online, making them experts in the field, their ability to help teachers may be greater and more important.  I still believe there must be some kind of training.  After watching Mª Jesús video, I have become aware this is already going on in Spain.  Well, the truth is I had never heard of that training before, and I believe it is well thought of, well structured and with mentors who are real teachers still working in the classroom, it may be a great opportunity to the teaching community.

We must not forget the convenience of mentoring online in big cities, where you can spend longer going to a school than mentoring itself.  In this case, mentoring online again is beneficial for both mentor and mentee.  

Yes, mentoring online is a great opportunity to get the help otherwise would be impossible or very difficult to get, but at the same time I believe it is always better, when possible, to proceed with the regular formula of physical presence of mentor and mentee in the same place, because in this way we will always keep the personal touch so important in the mentor-mentee relationship. 

I do not have any personal experience mentoring online, but those opportunities I have had talking informally to some teacher friends about different problems we might have had in common and we have discussed them online, but I wouldn´t consider that mentoring.

 

With online mentoring, I maintain accurate records, which are useful for studying and elaboration. I have time to review the material, prepare questions and answers. I am not pressured by the immediate response, and so I have time for constructive reflection and feedback. The written word clarifies possible misunderstandings. That is why we need to be very careful in our messages.

 

Group mentoring is also available, which further enriches the whole process. However, I think it is good to have a small number of participants. 

 

However, one disadvantage of online mentoring is often technological malfunctions, difficulty in using technology and written communication skills, as well as delay in developing relationships.

Online mentoring can make communication difficult and create misunderstandings or just bad interactions. Simple movements, such as a smile or a nod to the head, can be lost while mentoring online. Also, psychological support through discussion is often more limited. 

 

I myself prefer having a face-to-face mentoring combined with an online mentoring, with the first kind as a base for deeper relationship development and the second one as help for practical reason. 

I like to mix face to face teaching and learning altoghrther to online methods. I think that new technologies are useful for many things, but not for mentoring.

The use of audiovisual media is an active medium and can help to understand difficult issues with a more interactive presentation.