[Bridging_the_digital_divide] Web-based Tutoring

Tue Jun 15 21:21:23 EDT 2004

Web-based tutoring gives students study aid 24/7
  By Cara Branigan, Associate Editor, eSchool News
  June 15, 2004

A commercial, web-based tutoring service is helping high schools and 
colleges make live instructors available 24-hours a day, seven days a 
week to tutor students in mathematics. At the moment, this 
round-the-clock tutoring service is available only for math help, but 
the company says on-demand assistance is available in additional 
subjects for nine hours each day.

  Gallaudet University, a school for deaf and hard of hearing students 
in Washington, D.C., will begin offering the 24-hour, web-based 
tutoring service this fall. University representatives say tutoring at 
Gallaudet requires a diverse approach, because some of the school's 
students are born and reared with sign language, while others are new 
to their hearing loss and are better at reading than at using sign 
language.

  Online study help also serves the needs of students who wish to keep 
their need for assistance confidential. "We suspect there are some 
students who don't come into our center because they are embarrassed," 
said Terry Coye, Gallaudet's director of tutorial and instructional 
programs.

  The service, provided by a Washington, D.C.-based firm called 
SMARTHINKING Inc., will help the Gallaudet reach students who are not 
well served by the traditional sign-language-based tutoring provided by 
the school's graduate students.

  SMARTHINKING's tutoring sessions are like web chats, the company 
explained. Tutors and students communicate by typing on a virtual white 
board displayed on their computer screens. Each "white board" supports 
equations, annotations, and color-coded dialogue.

  Math tutoring is available live, one-on-one, at all times, according 
to the company. Tutoring in other subjects--including chemistry, 
economics, physics, biology, accounting, and statistics--is available 
from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. each day, the company said.

  When students log in, they can submit questions to live, real-time 
tutors, or they can schedule a tutoring session for another time.

  If live tutors are busy, a student's question is placed in a queue. 
While awaiting personal attention, the student sees the dialogue and 
equations from another tutoring session on his or her screen. It's like 
being placed on hold, but instead of music, the student sees someone 
else's tutoring session.

  All online interactions between student and tutor are saved, the 
company said, allowing students or schools to review past tutoring 
sessions on-demand. Students who can hear are not tied to their 
computer as they wait for tutors to become available, because an alarm 
rings when their session comes up. Company representatives conceded 
this feature will be of limited value for most of Gallaudet's students.

  The online tutoring will not replace Gallaudet's face-to-face service, 
Coye said, because the service is not well-suited to all of the 
university's students' learning styles. "A great [many] of our students 
are having trouble communicating through print," Coye said.

  Coye nonetheless predicted that math tutoring should be especially 
popular, because of the unique challenge math instruction poses for 
Gallaudet. "It's not easy to teach math to deaf students," he said. 
"Many students come with weaknesses, because they simply haven't taken 
many courses."

  In mainstream classes, deaf students who take math typically learn 
through an interpreter. "It's very complicated. Deaf students have to 
look at the interpreter and the blackboard and understand what the 
teacher is talking about all at the same time," Coye said.

  But, "the way the [virtual] white-board tutoring is done, is something 
that might be an excellent way for some students to learn math." Deaf 
students, who communicate with their hands, are very visual and will be 
responsive, he said.

  SMARTHINKING's service also includes a writing-critique component, in 
which students upload their essays and receive feedback within 24 hours 
on the strengths and weaknesses of their writing.

  For first-time clients, the company charges a fixed price for the year 
based on the number of students. After that, SMARTHINKING charges by 
the hours used.

  Gallaudet, which has approximately 2,000 students, is paying $2.95 per 
full-time student. This deal gives each student at Gallaudet 10 hours 
of tutoring to use throughout the entire year. According to the 
company, students use an average of 1.5 hours each.

  Gallaudet's students access the tutoring service, which can be 
customized with a school's logo and color scheme, through the school's 
online curriculum portal.

  According to SMARTHINKING, 300 colleges and 50 high schools from coast 
to coast use its service. In the past year, the company said, it has 
held some 155,000 tutoring sessions for approximately 70,000 students.

  The live tutoring requires students to learn how to use a virtual 
white board and spend about 25 minutes actively engaged with a tutor.

  "Just from the volume of students and repeat students, we know the 
service gets used a lot," said Burck Smith, CEO of SMARTHINKING Inc. 
"There's enough students to generate the need for math tutors 24 hours 
a day."

  SMARTHINKING said it will expand the availability of tutoring time for 
other subjects by an hour starting this fall.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=5111

---

Jason Barkeloo
President
TouchSmart Publishing
http://www.touchsmart.net
tele 513.225.8765

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