At Tutorz.com there is a discussion going on about the disruptive changes of Online Tutoring. In this article we explain why online tutoring constitutes a disruptive change and how the market has embraced to it so far. Then we go on to present the Tutorz.com strategy to online tutoring which is essentially a online tutor referral service. Finally we review a Skype, the Bamboo Tablet and Skrbl.com as communication tools to facilitate an online tutoring session.
Disruptive Change of Online Tutoring
Online tutoring refers to the process of tutoring within an online virtual environment or networked environment where teachers and learners are separated by time and/or space. Both student and tutor benefit through online tutoring as they do not need to be present at the some physical location. Participants save the time and money to travel. At this feature is welcome at times of gas prices and high traffic congestion. Furthermore, the location independent aspects of online tutoring make it a part of the globalization of the world’s economic system. Inexpensive and well educated tutors in India can help students in America with their math homework, course work and science problems. Due to these wage level differences American students pay less for online sessions in comparison to the pay for in-home tutoring. Online tutoring is also very welcomed by the overseas tutors. For example the hourly pay to an Indian online tutor ($3-$10) is far higher than of most educational professionals ($0.50 to $5), including the hourly wage of an Indian teacher.
If an online tutoring session was recorded the student could later go back and replay the lesson. This is a very useful feature when hard-to-understand concepts must be addressed. After all learning is a lot of repetition. Another benefit of a recorded tutoring session is that it can be added to an search index to make it easily retrievable in later years and/or by other students.
Current Market Responses to Online Tutoring
Playing the global income differences and elimination of location constrains a number of online tutoring services have been established. The biggest players in this industry include TutorVista.com, Tutor.com, SmartThinking.com, Tutoringservicers.com and Homeschoolmath.net. These company command a significant share of the tutoring market and its brands are recognized by the education seekers.
The Babson Survey Research Group said that more than 60 percent of academic leaders at private-sector colleges and universities say that online learning is critical to their long-term strategies. Online student enrollments continue to be the fastest growing sector in higher education. The perception among private-sector leaders of online learning and its impact on learning outcomes has grown more positive over time, with the majority saying online learning is the same or superior to face-to-face learning, a trend that has improved steadily since initially measured by the Sloan Survey in 2003.
Tutorz’ Strategy to Online Tutoring
At Tutorz.com we think it is futile to directly compete against big player like TutorVista or Tutor.com. These companies are in the market for about 10 years, have well established brands and are backed by venture capitalist. Therefore, instead of competing directly with these heavy weights, we will focus on the sub problem of online tutoring referral. As users of Tutor.com will tell you they cannot choose from a selection of tutors, they are given one. But tutees like to be connected with the right online tutor, thus there is work to be done in this area. By channeling online tutors from all over the world, users of Online-Tutorz have a great choice and can find the best tutor for their budget, qualification and availability requirements. The referral-only approach also alleviates Tutorz.com from developing our own communication tools (VOIP, whiteboard, video conferencing). After all a number of really good tutoring/communication tools exist such as Skype, the Bamboo Tablet and Skrbl.com. While leaving the details of how to solve the communication to these great providers Tutorz leverages its core competencies, that of algorithmic matching of students with tutors. Tutorz.com plans to enter the field of online tutoring in 2012.
Review Online Tutoring Tools
Skype.com is probably the most advance VOIP (voice over IP) services out there. Skype is great because if you and your communication partner both use it there is no fees and no advertisements involved. Furthermore, Starting from Skype 4.0 there is a video call feature. Skype is reliable and works well on all major platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux). The list of other useful Skype features includes the ability of screen sharing. For computer or programming tutoring screen sharing is extremely useful. File sharing is another useful feature. Simply drag and drop your Word document (or any other file) into the message box and your partner gets it on the other end. Going on there are Skype-to-Skype conference calls and instant messaging and group instant messages.
Receiving phone calls from the telephony network or calling general phone numbers requires a Skype subscription. But these payable services are not really needed for online tutoring.
Other online tutoring tools include Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, AOL AIM and MSN Messeger. These tools are quite good and each have their pros and cons. But Skype remains our online tutoring tool of choice.
On May 10, 2011 Microsoft bought Skype. We hope this will have no adverse effects on great Skype service.
Bamboo Tablet. It is an electronic (hardware) pen-on-paper solution that consists of a writing tablet and a pen. It has a natural feel of pen-on-paper. The Bamboo tablet plugs into your computer. As to its pros, it is sturdy, the pen is comfortable to hold and has a slight “rubber” feel to it, no battery needed, comes with easy to install and simple to customize software. On the downside it has a only a small drawing surface and the eraser is not pressure sensitive. Bamboo Tablet is sold by Wacom and it starts at $55 for the tablet and pen.
Skrbl.com is a online whiteboard service. Being a Software-as-a-service (SAAS) solution, with skrbl there is nothing to download, or to install. It supports the freehand drawing, and text mode. Skrbl saves and syncs your whiteboard automatically. But since drawing and write is primarily accomplish through a mouse, the results can be a jiggly and uneven. However, the Skrbl service is great to augment a tutoring session where ideas are shared on a white board such as math formulas or sketches of scientific apparatuses.
Acknowledgement
I want to thank Chuck Koehler and Scott Bishop for inspiring this discussion on Online Tutoring.
