The Tutor.com Blog

The new Harry Potter movie is coming out this Friday, and if you’re like me you haven’t given it much of a thought since trying to scrub the red-pen scar off your head after the midnight showing of the Half-Blood Prince.

In an effort to re-connect to the history of the wizarding world, I have compiled a brief synopsis of the first six books in the Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling. SPOILER DISCLAIMER: I am working under the assumption that the reader has ALREADY READ the series and is looking for a quick recap to be up to speed for the November 19th movie release of the Deathly Hallows Part 1.

Year 1 -Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (or Philosopher’s Stone, if you want to be British about it):

How Harry escapes the Dursleys: Uncle Vernon can’t hoard the gazillion letters addressed to Harry that keep flying through the chimney so he takes the family to a secret location where Hagrid shows up and drops the bomb that: A. There is a secret world of wizards, B. Harry is boy wizard., and C. There is a school that he’s supposed to attend.

Major Dilemma: Besides which house they were sorted into, trying to get a hold of the stone before the big V does.

Coolest magic: Bertie Botts, Invisibility Cloak, WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!

Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: Professor Quirrell

Year 2 – Chamber of Secrets

How Harry escapes the Dursleys: Ron comes and saves the day in a flying car after Harry gets locked in his room for the ruckus Dobby created.

Major Dilemma: The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Tom Riddle’s diary and Ginny in the chamber.

Coolest Magic: Harry is a parselmouth (he can speak to snakes!)

Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher: Gilderoy Lockhart

Year 3 – Prisoner of Azkaban

How Harry escapes the Dursleys: Runs out the door after blowing his aunt up like a balloon and catches the Knight Bus to Diagon Alley.

Major Dilemma: Staying away from a guy named Sirius Black.  (Hes’s got a scary name, but turns out to be a pretty stand-up guy.)

Coolest Magic: Expecto Patronum!  And werewolves!

Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher:  Remus Lupin

Year 4 – Goblet of Fire

How Harry escapes the Dursleys: The Weasley clan comes and politely asks to take Harry off the Dursley’s hands for the Quidditch World Cup- which would’ve flown had not Fred and George left a piece of candy for Dudley to munch on…

Major Dilemma: Finding a date to the Yule ball. Living through the Triwizard Tournament and subsequent cemetery duel.

Coolest Magic: Floo Powder and Portkeys.

Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher: Mad-Eye Moody (played by Barty Crouch)

Year 5 – Order of the Phoenix

How Harry escapes the Dursleys: After getting expelled from Hogwarts for using a Patronus spell to save Dudley from a dementor, The Order of the Phoenix comes and take him away.

Major Dilemma(s): O.W.L. exams. Creating an army to take down Umbridge and take back Hogwarts. (Dumbledore was removed from the school by the Ministry of Magic). Occlumency lessons with Snape.

Coolest Magic: Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes (Extendable Ears!)

Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher: Dolores Umbridge

Year 6 – Half-Blood Prince

How Harry escapes the Dursleys: Dumbledore picks up Harry on his way to con Horace Slughorn into teaching at Hogwarts

Major Dilemma(s): Trying to convince people Draco is up to something.  Add in some teenage angst – a love triangle with Lavender, Hermione and Ron and Harry’s noble attempt at protecting Ginny by breaking up with her, and learning about Horcruxes and trying to destroy them – all the while avoiding Death Eaters.

Coolest Magic: Horcruxes, Snapes old potions book.

Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher: Snape finally gets the position! Horace Slughorn takes over potions.

Want even more Harry Potter fun? Check out your local library to see if they are hosting any Potter-themed events this week!

This Post was written by Stephen Schrage, Tutor.com’s new Sales and Marketing Team Assistant. When not reading Harry Potter, you can find Steve watching Detroit sports, listening to the Dave Matthews Band and exploring his new home of NYC! He believes that this post would be best enjoyed with a warm glass of butterbeer.

Photo credit: Woodleywonderworks



It’s Hawaii week here at Tutor.com! We’ve been traveling all over Hawaii, telling students and families all about free tutoring available for military families.

You may already associate Hawaii with hula dancing, volcanoes, gorgeous beaches and pineapples, but have you thought about Hawaii’s long career as an actor? Hawaii works hard, but is frequently uncredited. We asked Lauren Lobdell, Tutor.com’s newest Client Services manager and resident film buff to give us her favorite Hawaiian screen-time moments.

Top 5 Favorite Hawaiian Film and TV Moments

1.  Lost (2004-2010): This is one of the best pilots ever! Having watched that first episode, I quickly introduced it to all my friends and family. Before long, I always had an addicted group of fanatics salivating over every moment of the 6-season island mystery along with me. Hawaii played the show’s most important character – the remote South Pacific island nobody could find.

2.  From Here to Eternity (1953): One of my favorite old movies owes its place in history to Hawaii. It tells the story of three personally-conflicted military personnel living on a Hawaiian installation during World War II. Notably, the film won an Academy Award for Best Picture that year, as did legendary singer, Frank Sinatra for his acting performance.

3.  Jurassic Park (1993): I remember the thrill of hearing John William’s musical score for the first time as the helicopter carrying paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant to the supposedly Costa Rican island of dinosaurs swelled up in the background. In fact, it was Hawaii’s island of Kauai once again filling in.

4.  Lilo and Stitch: Disney + animation + Hawaii = a fantastic modern addition to the already fabulous repertoire of Disney animated classics. Enough said.

5.  Raiders of the lost Ark: Arguably one of the greatest cinematic characters of all time, Indiana Jones himself, was first introduced in an opening shot that assumes the identity of a South American jungle. Again, all exterior shots in the scene were provided courtesy of Hawaii.

Alternate:

1.  Hawaii 5-0: While it hasn’t been a big deal in my life, this show was a big moment in Hawaii’s grand acting career and has manifested a new reboot series currently set and filmed on location in Hawaii. Jury is still out on the new version for me, (though I liked the pilot), but it has kept Hawaii’s film crews working after the end of Lost last spring. That I really like!

For info on more Hawaii in film and TV check out the Hawaii Film Office website.

What are your favorite Hawaii roles?

There are lots of great recommendations for summer reading lists (including ALA’s Top 100 Super Summer Reads for Teens) and we are always looking for a great book for the beach, long car rides (if someone else is driving, of course!) and just sitting outside with some lemonade and SPF 50.

Sometimes you need not only a great book, but a book that feels “seasonal.” That’s why we have compiled our “Summer” Summer Reading List!

All of the books on this list take place over summer break. Can’t you just feel the ice cubes clinking together?

• Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
• Summer Sisters by Judy Blume
• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
• The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
• The Hot and Cold Summer by Joanna Hurwitz
• Summerland by Michael Chabon
• Fever, 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene

Don’t forget the tried-and-true classics!

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

What are your favorite summer-themed books?

Poets House held its annual Brooklyn Bridge Poetry Walk (and fundraiser) on Monday.  Lots of fun and a huge success, with over 300 people walking across the bridge, with poetry readings at the start, in the middle of the bridge, and at Fulton Landing in Brooklyn at the end, followed by a dinner at Bubby’s in the DUMBO area of Brooklyn.

Great press coverage of the Bridge Walk, including in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and in the current New Yorker magazine about Poets House’s new home on the Hudson River.  Tutor.com is a modest corporate sponsor, joining the likes of American Express and Berkshire Capital Securities, and I have helped along the way since joining the Board of Directors over a year ago.

I was joined on the walk by my daughter (an excellent writer), Tutor.com’s Julie Weintraub, and some friends from the Brooklyn Public Library.  Here are a couple of pictures from the walk and the dinner, which included readings by Galway Kinnell, Tina Chang, and Bill Murray (here’s a great link to a youtube video of Bill Murray reading poetry to construction workers as they were finishing the building of Poets House new home).

So many people worked so hard to pull of this great event, but the big standing ovation goes to Lee Briccetti, the tireless leader and Executive Director of Poets House.  Awesome job, Lee!  And wonderful how she planned for the sun to break through the overcast skies just as we stopped for readings on the bridge by Tom Lutz and Tina Chang, followed by the deep colors of a sunset at Fulton Landing behind Galway Kinnell’s reading of Whitman’s ”Crossing Brooklyn Ferry“.  Very nicely done.

Poets House is the largest library of original poetry works, with over 50,000 volumes, and is a beautiful place to browse, read and relax, and bring your family or a small school group.   We’ll be doing another walk next June, and welcome your participation and support. 

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com 

Previous CEO posts are also at http://ceotutor.blogspot.com/

We each take turns writing our blog posts for the book club. This entry was from Abel Martin. Abel is a developer at Tutor.com. When not building new features or reading manga, he’s playing sports, playing video games, writing code for personal projects, or planning his upcoming wedding!

I really enjoy reading manga and I wanted to bring my joy to the book club members who hadn’t experienced it firsthand.  If you’re like me and you want to introduce friends who aren’t familiar with manga, Tekkon Kinkreet: Black & White might be a worth checking out.  However, you should make sure to give novices to the genre more pointers than I gave my fellow book-clubbers.  In retrospect, I think the most important part of reading manga is to understand how the panels (individual squares on each page) add to the story.  Reading a good manga is like watching a good movie.  The story is told through both dialogue and visuals.  Here are some handy tips on panels for the freshman

Right to Left vs. Left to Right:
Before you start reading a manga you’ll need to know how to read the book.  The panels in Tekkon Kinkreet: Black & White have been Americanized.  This means that the panels read in the same direction as an American comic book (read from left to right) as opposed to traditional manga (read from right to left).  This removes a hurdle for people who are new to the genre, but keep it in mind as you read other manga.  Usually they will be a page in what Americans would consider the start of the book that’ll warn you if the panels are laid out in a traditional manner and you’ll start reading from the rear.

Look for themes that repeat:
In Tekkon Kinkreet: Black & White, like most manga, there are themes that repeat not only in dialogue, but also visually in the panels.  Take note of Black and White’s companion animals.  Ask yourself why each character gets a particular animal and what feeling each one creates for you as you read.  Also ask yourself why there are so many duos in Treasure Town and how each duo compares to the rest.

If something in a panel looks weird, ask yourself why before you move to the next panel:
In a good manga, everything in a panel is important and deliberate.  The choice of fonts, the background shadows, the lack of shadows, the graffiti, everything.  The talking turtles, the “HYUUU” that roars through the town at certain moments, and the constantly changing proportions of the characters all have purpose.    If after some reflection something still doesn’t make sense, talk about it with someone else who read the book. There’s a good bit of depth in the panels, especially the ending!

Tekkon Kinkreet: Black & White is a good introduction to manga.  I’m happy that I had a chance to introduce a new genre to my fellow book club members and I look forward to having conversations about new manga that they discover on their own.

The next book club selection is the new YA classic, Neal Shusterman’s Unwind.

The rising cost of gas is a major concern for American families these days. According to a recent Gallup poll of 1,008 respondents, 42 percent indicated gas prices had reached a crisis level. So, it’s no surprise that people are looking for ways to spend less time in their car and utilize more online resources. A recent survey of over 2,300 adults surveyed by Harris Interactive for iCongo showed that 33% of respondents cited the high price at the pumps as the reason for shopping online.

One way to save that you may not have thought about is using online tutoring instead of an in-person tutor or learning center. Traditional tutoring involves mom or dad driving to and from appointments. But, if parents switched to online tutoring, where you connect to a live tutor right from home, the savings really add up.

Tutor.com has calculated that by conducting more than 103,000 online tutoring sessions in April, we have freed up 27,635 gallons of gas from being used driving to and from tutoring centers and saved families $102,692.99.*

And, in Texas, where gas reached a record-high $3.507 a gallon, families who opted for our online tutoring service saved over $5,300 in gas expenses. Similar gas price records are happening in Utah and Maryland.

*Savings based on a six-mile round-trip drive costing $3.72 per gallon of gas for a car that averages 22.4 miles per gallon (Sources: The Bureau of Transportation Statistics and Energy Information Administration.)

Happy Holidays!

The Tutor.com Team

In Tutor.com’s first ever back-to-school season in 2001, a student connected to a tutor through the Louisville Public Library’s website to get help with an English assignment. Our 97 tutors would go on to provide 1,466 on-demand tutoring and homework sessions through the end of the year, helping students who were using the program through several public libraries including Boston Public Library, San Francisco Public Library and the Library of Charlotte Mecklenburg County.

Today, Tutor.com has more than 1,800 tutors and we conduct about 1,500 online tutoring sessions in two hours every day after-school.  Students of all ages use Tutor.com thanks to more than 1,800 public libraries, schools and corporations as well as the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps that offer Tutor.com services free to the students in their respective communities.  Students connect to a tutor from wherever they have a computer and Internet access.

A lot has changed since those first few months in 2001. We’ve since won lots of awards, brought on thousands of tutors and now, our latest achievement? We’ve conducted our five millionth session. That’s a lot of answered questions about science fair projects and balanced chemical equations. We’ve found the length of side B and the themes in Of Mice and Men quite a few times.

It’s a big number and we are really, really proud of such an accomplishment. If you are wondering how to size-up five million online tutoring sessions go to www.tutor.com/5million for our top fun facts and watch our video that shows just where across the United States students have been using Tutor.com.

We also want to say “Thank You.” Thank you to all the organizations that have provided this service to their patrons, to the students who have left us wonderful comments that make our days brighter (students told us that Tutor.com “rocks” almost 9,000 times in post session comments), to the librarians and program managers who are always finding new and creative ways to tell their communities about the service and to the thousands of tutors who are helping with all of those “aha!” moments. Thanks, and here’s to the next fifty million!

November 14^th was ALA’s National Gaming Day @ your library and it appears to have been a huge success, which isn’t surprising since everyone loves games!

The Tutor.com office isn’t a library (but sometimes looks like one!) and we all work really hard, but we also love to play.

During the winter we usually have a bi-weekly game night in the cafeteria. The board games are always there, but its nice to spend some time relaxing and playing games like Apples to Apples, the Big Idea and Taboo. We have even had a guest GM come in to run a Dungeons & Dragons-style role playing game for us.

CEO George Cigale has a standing Scrabble challenge.

When walking through our office, make sure you don’t bump into the chess set. At any given time, two employees (and some fans) are examining the board to plot their next move.

“When you see a good move, look for a better one”

For six years, no one has been able to beat our reigning fantasy baseball champion, VP of Technology Russ Greenspan. This year, Gary Yip took home the gold. Russ has vowed to regain his glory.

It doesn’t get used too often, but we do have a DDR pad.  Sean McNally (Tutor Support) unseated Abel Martin (Software Developer) as the champion, but both graciously encourage even the klutziest of us to find rhythm. And if they are laughing at us, they hide it well.

Tuesday night means basketball! When the weather is nice out (and even sometimes when its not) a group of dunkers go play under the Brooklyn Bridge to challenge each other or whatever unlucky souls happen to be on the court. Check out our SVP of Corporate Development go for a lay up!

And of course, we should mention our undefeated 2008 kickball team!

Great teamwork pays off!

Do you have any games you like to play with your colleagues?

Some of these pictures had to be coaxed out of the Tutor.com staff with promises of candy corn and freshly baked cookies but it was worth it! Enjoy some costumes from the Tutor.com family.

Tutor.com loves animals!

Adam Masur’s pup Briscoe is the dog park sensei.

By day, my cat Sid is a docile house cat. But on All Hallow’s Eve? The meanest chicken you’ve ever seen.

We all know where our CEO George Cigale’s baseball loyalties lie. Let’s just hope his dog Suey isn’t a secret Yankees fan.

Normally, mild-mannered Frank the Wonderpug loves treats and sitting in the sun. But on Halloween, he becomes “Frank-a-langelo” (the lost member of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.)

It’s not just pets. We let kids have some of the fun too!

Kara Froman’s son Noah is no sparkly vampire. He goes for the classic Transylvanian look.

Maya is little, but she is the cutest pumpkin in the patch!

Julie’s twins Alex and Ryan are some mischievous ghosts, and her son Ben can melt even the iciest glare.

And let’s not forget Rebecca! Rebecca showed what a true “Jem” she is by giving a technology presentation (no holograms, though).

We want to see your costumes! Send your fun Halloween photos to blog@tutor.com.

Earlier this year, Alabama public libraries participated in our “Wii Love Alabama” raffle.  Staff members told us which features in our Learning Suite would benefit their patrons the most, and we picked one submission at random to decide who would win a brand-new Nintendo Wii.  We got entries from across the state, but the Jacksonville Public Library went home with the console.  Congratulations, guys!

JPL staffers were particularly impressed by our Career Center, where library patrons can get job search tips, download resume and cover letter templates, and even proofread their resumes with a live English tutor.  Here are a few of their responses:

• “Many patrons in our area are desperately trying to locate a job and are in our library day after day looking for ways to support their families in these economically stressed times.”
• “I think the aspect of the new Tutor.com Learning Suite that has the most value for my patrons is Proof Point, because everyone can use another ‘brain’ to test the logic of what they have written, not to mention catch sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors.”
• “This is a fantastic tool to have because they are talking to a ‘real-live’ person that can help them the same day and have their resumes done sooner.”
• “I was an English major and I still feel like writing a cover letter is one of the most daunting tasks in communicating with potential employers, so I know that help in that area can really benefit those who are even less confident in their writing skills.”

We’re happy to help, and even happier that JPL is already getting some use out of its new Wii.  Library staffers hosted a teen gaming night at a local church last month, and one staffer told us “It was heartwarming to see kids who did not know each other become friends during the competition.”

A few weeks later, JPL had a Wii Bowling night for patrons 50 and over—and judging from the photos they sent us, the seniors had a great time.  Another bowling event is scheduled for tonight, so be sure to stop by if you’re in the area.  Happy bowling!

By Noah

At 11 AM on May 11th, my Grandpa and I pulled up to a parking lot in Florida to watch the space shuttle Atlantis lift off from Kennedy Space Center. It was not too cool on this 95 degree day! There were other people gathered there, and we all shared our binoculars and camera equipment and ice from our coolers while we waited. It was a very interesting group and people were definitely excited!

At 2:01 PM I looked through my binoculars to see the shuttle take off. We were only five miles away from the launch site. I could see a line of fire in the sky trailing 20 feet behind the shuttle. And the sound was loud! I could see the shuttle take off and fly through the sky, but didn’t hear the sound for a full 30 seconds afterward. In fact, the shuttle was going so fast that it was out of sight before the sound from the liftoff reached us.

Did you know?

• The launch can be so loud that it could damage the launch pad. So, they use water to quiet the sound.
• This has been the first launch in history to have two shuttles on the launch pad ready to go at the same time. The second shuttle is there to handle repairs in case the first shuttle is damaged.
• The purpose of this launch is to send astronauts out to work on the Hubble telescope. But this is the last time. If the Hubble needs more work after this trip, it will be destroyed. Another shuttle will be sent to push the Hubble telescope into the Earth’s atmosphere, where it will burn up.

Noah is 10 years old and in the 4th grade. Noah’s mom works at Tutor.com, and sent us this story.