AFRI-INLEO INITIATIVE 28// COMPARISON BETWEEN ONLINE AND PHYSICAL MENTORING IN MUSIC

The subject for this inleo initiative 28 comes with another topic which is timely and the present challenge we have in virtually all sectors today. Physical mentorship and online music tutorials which one is better? I would like to bring comparison between the two major subjects online and physical mentorship. I would also try to dig out both their pros and cons.
Mentoring or mentorship is a vital vehicle today that is essential in building and moulding individuals that would bring transformation in the sphere of music. There are many people that delve into music without proper mentoring which affects their productivity later in their musical career. Hence there's need to pay attention to mentoring.

Either of the mentoring is good and perfect based on individual. Let me share on the benefits of online and possibly it's disadvantage.
Online mentoring entails the used of ICT to mentor an individual from where he's with good time and multiple mentors. Some of the benefits of online mentoring are;

• Flexibility. Since the advent of ICT, life has really changed which affects all the endeavors of human. Presently, one of the easiest ways to mentor an individual is via the online. It's very flexible for the mentee because he can choose to to record and listen or watch it later. This flexibility makes it convenient for the mentee. For instance some videos on YouTube can be downloaded and played later.
• Online mentoring normally saves huge amounts of time and resources. Have you noticed that physical mentoring consumes more time and energy? With the online mentoring, you could do have the time to do multiple things. Recently we had an international program where our mentee addressed quite a number of us. It was properly programmed and no encroachment into time unlike during physical classes where there is no good time management.
• Online mentoring covers a lot. This made me to remember when I was working with an organization. During COVID-19, we had one of the greatest presence in our online training. More than ten nations were available. If not because of online, I could keep imagining when we would attain such target of invading other foreign countries like this? This was possible just within two days. Thank God for the power of ICT.
• In online mentoring, there is no geographical limitations or restrictions instead it has a wide coverage. Just as I shared earlier.

Some of the disadvantage of online mentoring are;

• Communication limitation. Here it's difficult for the mentor to communicate using other means to the mentee such as eye contact, etc. Truly there might not be effective communication because of distractions. Yesterday, I had an online meeting yesterday. I put the phone on while I was engaged with other tasks. This is bad because I can see the person.
• Another disadvantage is in the area of the different time zones we have. This variation could affect mentoring process. It might night here elsewhere might be day.
• There could be technical or network issues which could affect mentoring process as well.

The physical mentorship is a good platform where the mentor and mentee have the privilege to see themselves. This is also an effective way of mentoring even though it doesn't covered many people.

CONCLUSION

Mentorship both online and physical is good it all depends on the availability and convenience of an individual(mentee).

Thanks for reading my entry for this Initiative.