Mentoring with Technology

I am interested in develop a way to mentor students using technology. Kids seem to love texting and posting on their facebook. How can this be used by teachers to help mentor students? Teachers in the news often get in trouble for communicating with students using technology but there must be a way to utilize technology in a meaningful way to mentor students.

One idea I have is that students and teachers could use a discussion tab on a wiki for communication about a very specific topic such as researching careers or an independent research topic. Maybe the discussion could center around school success and the mentoring can focus on how a student's week is going, what they need to do to accomplish goals, etc.

What issues may arise from this type of mentoring? What benefits would there be to using technology along with face to face mentoring? I would love any ideas and feedback but I will return here to document what I learn as I explore this idea.