The Tutor.com Blog

We caught up with the Tutor.com team to find out what they are thankful for this Thanksgiving holiday. Check out their responses below and share what you are thankful for in the comments section. On behalf of the whole team, we wish you a very happy and safe Thanksgiving!

A big thanks to Evelyn Sullivan, our Onboarding Manager, for putting together this fantastic collage!

Since we launched Tutor.com To Go™, our mobile app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users, students have been telling us   “I need this for my Android device.”  We listened and today we launched our HTML5 classroom to give students web access from any device they own.  That’s right.  Now students can connect to a tutor from any mobile phone or tablet. 

 How it Works in 3 Easy Steps

1. Sign in the same way you do at your computer.
2. Choose your subject.
3. Work with a tutor in our HTML5 classroom.

Students with Tutor.com accounts have completed nearly 10,000 one-to-one tutoring and career sessions using their iOS mobile device since Tutor.com To Go launched in April 2011. Students give the mobile experience high praise and 93% of students completing post-session surveys say they would recommend it to a friend.  “I love this! I can be in the waiting room of a doctor’s office and connected to a chemistry tutor!! ” reported a tenth grade student who connected for a chemistry session from her iPhone. 

 However you use Tutor.com, through your library, school, college, company or the U.S. Military, you can start using the HTML5 Classroom today.  To learn more go to www.tutor.com/mobile.  Let us know how it works for you!

At around 3:30pm ET September 15th, we reached our 7 millionth session mark! While we recapped the mobile session in an earlier post, we also wanted to catch up with Karen D., the tutor who holds the honor of having conducted that mammoth milestone session.

Tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Karen D. and I live in College Station, TX. I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Mathematics Education from Brigham Young University. I currently home school my kids and tutor with Tutor.com.

How did you find out about Tutor.com?

I found out about Tutor.com from a friend who told me she had been tutoring for a few months. I started in October 2008, so I have been tutoring now for almost 3 years. I tutor Algebra, Algebra II, Geometry and Calculus.

What is your favorite part of tutoring?

My favorite part of tutoring is when a student is really struggling and I manage to show them something that makes it all click into place and they get super excited. One of the more fun things that has happened from my tutoring with Tutor.com is that my kids have asked me to teach them some of the things I teach people on the computer. I love that they are learning an enthusiasm for math from my work!

Do you think a 1-to-1 connection is important to learning?

I think a 1-to-1 connection in learning makes a big difference in helping students. The ability to provide individualized assessment of strengths and weaknesses and tailor the learning approach accordingly is what makes tutoring so successful.

Why do you tutor with Tutor.com? What makes you stay?

I am a Tutor.com tutor because it is so flexible! I also love that I can do it at odd hours, like late at night or for a few minutes at lunch. I appreciate that it pays pretty well when you factor in lack of other expenses as well.

What’s one thing you think every student should do in order to become a better student?

If every student learned how to work neatly through longer math problems, they’d make fewer mistakes.

What’s your best homework or study tip?

My best homework/study tip is to draw a picture! If you can draw a picture of what is going on, you can often figure out how to answer the problem!

Yesterday (9/15)  around 3:30 p.m. everyone in our NYC offices and some of our remote staff (thanks to Skype!)  gathered around a large monitor to watch as the number 7,000,000 rolled onto the www.tutor.com homepage.   There were doughnuts.  There were cheers.  And then some of the more competitive folks in the office started offering up their best guess for the 8,000,000 session which should be less than a year away.

Today we found out that the student who rolled in at 7 million used Tutor.com To Go™, our mobile app to connect to a tutor.  It was a fantastic session.   The student wanted help on Algebra II homework.  Using her iPhone she snapped a picture of the assignment and sent it to the tutor.  They successfully worked on that question and then the student snapped a picture from the textbook to share another problem.  Once again she and the tutor were able to address her issue while she was on her phone.

Blended learning and BYOT is a hot topic in K-12 education.  These trends focus on using a mix of traditional classroom instruction mixed with technology tools including software and mobile devices.  We love how students do this so seamlessly.  The student received classroom instruction, went home and did homework with a paper and pencil using a problem from a textbook. Then she used mobile technology to connect to a tutor for an online learning session that combined all of these elements to deliver exceptional results.

Welcome to 21^st century learning.   We’re glad to be part of it. And we’re glad to have amazing partners  — public libraries, schools, colleges, the U.S. Military and of course our tutors.  We hope you are enjoying the journey as much as we do.

We’re excited to see how session 8 million will be delivered.   Phone? Tablet? Hologram?  What’s your best guess?

Students talked, we listened.

Just in time for the 2011 back to school season the Tutor.com Online Classroom has been redesigned to deliver the best online learning experience available. Simpler, larger and easier to use, we collected extensive student feedback and took action to give students of all ages the online classroom they wanted. Don’t fret about any major changes though; these new updates just make the Tutor.com experience even easier.

So, what has changed? Find out below & check out our video walking you through the updated classroom!

Bigger is better. By adjusting the layout of the online classroom, we have been able to create even more workspace for students and tutors to work together – the new classroom is over 30% larger than our previous board. Along with the new layout, we are also proud to introduce our new Growy^TM Interactive Whiteboard. Since problems in the classroom are solved vertically, the Growy^TM whiteboard automatically expands as you near the end of the page, allowing students to remain within the same whiteboard for one problem. Need graph paper to chart the math equation you are working on? No worries, students are still able to add a board to the session and move back and forth between the two.

Back to the basics. Our online classroom has a ton of tools. We have pyramids, cubes, calculus equations, fonts, you name it. And while experienced users take full advantage, we’ve found those just starting out stick to the basics – so we have made it easier for them to do just that. The new tools section contains our most used features that help students work through any problem with the tutor.  For those who do want to use the more advanced features, they are just a click away. We haven’t gotten rid of anything, just reorganized to simplify and create more workspace. Oh, we almost forgot to mention the eraser! One of the most requested features by students is now available in the classroom, an eraser, which will work intelligently across the “layers” of the whiteboard.

Mobile friendly. Now no matter what iOS device students connect from–whether it is a desktop, laptop or tablet–they will connect to the same new online classroom. If they log on from their iPhone or iPod Touch they will be connected to the same chat functionality. Standardizing the online classroom across multiple platforms means students will know where things are and work more efficiently.

Personalized. Adult students in the College and Adult Centers will now find more age-appropriate avatars when they have a session.

We are so excited to share these changes and have them available for the 2011 school year. Take a look, try out the new classroom and continue encouraging students to give us feedback—and we’ll keep listening!

 It seems like it was just yesterday when Tutor.com was a new organization selling the first online tutoring and homework program to a group of innovative libraries. Ten years later, 83% of libraries offer some kind of online homework help program as part of their mission of lifelong learning.

Ten Years. Ten Facts.

 2001:  Our first libraries sign on and offer on demand tutoring including Boston Public Library and San Francisco Public Library - still partners with us today!

2002:  Our tutors complete 100,000 online tutoring sessions 

2003:  Network of 500 tutors working online with students

2005:  Ask A Librarian™ launches to deliver on demand reference help

2006: Kansas joins Alabama as a statewide program with Governor Kathleen Sebelius at the launch

2007:  Tutor.com becomes Mac Compatible

2008:  Service expands to 24/7 on demand help

2009:  Launch the Tutor.com Learning Suite™ with college level help and career help

2010:  Tutor.com for U.S. Military Families launches through military libraries around the world

2011:  Tutor.com To Go™ launches – the first and only online tutoring app for libraries.  We hit 6.8 million sessions  and counting!

We have been incredibly fortunate to work with some amazing librarians throughout the years. They have taught us so much about working with and serving diverse communities. We’re proud to be featured in more than 2,000 library sites across the country serving all ages –  Kindergartners through college students and job seekers too.

Watch our 10th Anniversary video to see many of the librarians, students, governors and mayors who have helped bring online, on demand learning to millions of students across the country. You can also see our old logos, our favorite smiley face costume and the different Online Classrooms where students have received help.

We hope to see many of you at ALA Annual for a cake and champagne celebration right at our booth #859 on Saturday, June 25th at 3:30 p.m. You can also check out Tutor.com To Go in the new mobile pavilion booth #816C. No matter where you see us, be sure to pick up your very own Tutor.com beads – a must-have in New Orleans!

Thanks to everyone for a great decade!

Each year, we survey our tutors to find out how we’re doing.  Do tutors have the right resources?  Are the online classroom tools helping make sessions effective and efficient?   What else can Tutor.com do to support the folks who will deliver 1.1 million online tutoring and homework help sessions this year alone?

Well the results are in!  Approximately 77% of our 2,000+ tutors participated and more than 95% report they are satisfied or very satisfied with their experience at Tutor.com.   Tutors answered questions regarding the support, resources and software provided by Tutor.com. They are overwhelmingly satisfied in the areas described below:

• 93.1% with provided resources
• 94.0% with the feedback provided by their Tutor Mentor
• 94.9% with the level of communication from Tutor.com
• 90.6% with the online classroom software
• 93.5% with their interactions with Tutor Support
• 93.2% with the students’ overall educational experience

 Online tutoring is an ideal position for men and women who require flexibility and a remote work environment.    Tutors can work from anywhere and choose their own hours. Approximately 10% of the tutors are affiliated with the military in some way, most often as a spouse or retiree.  Military families move often and Tutor.com allows a spouse stationed in San Antonio, Texas to keep tutoring when she is  re-located to Ramstein, Germany.   Flexibility is also key for teachers and professionals on leave to care for young children, or current teachers who tutor in the evening hours.

If you’d like to become an online tutor in physics, chemistry, calculus or statistics, please visit www.tutor.com/apply.

In just about a month, students have completed 1,000 one-to-one tutoring sessions using Tutor.com To Go™, our mobile app for iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad.  Students love this new way to get help and have given their sessions an average rating of 4.2 (on a scale of 1 – 5).  Here’s what a few students had to say about their experience with Tutor.com To Go:

“I cannot believe how much my math is improving just because of this app! Thank you tutor.com!   - Middle Grades Math Student

“I love how you can draw on the whiteboard –  Middle Grades Math Student

“this makes all my classes so much easier!  THANK YOU!  -  Biology Student

We’re not surprised to learn that 46% of the sessions are from students using their iPod Touch.  A big reason Tutor.com chose to develop first for iOS devices (aka Apple) is because they are what most people own.  According to an April 2011 Piper Jaffray report of high-school teens, 86% of digital music players purchased are iPods and over 80% of tablets purchased are iPads.  The majority of teens with a  mobile device can use our app today.

Of course we want all students to have the advantage of Tutor.com To Go and that’s why we plan on launching a version of our app for Android and other mobile operating systems later this year. 

To learn more about our development process and why we chose to create platform-native apps read Russell Greenspan, Vice President of Technology blog post  “Why We Went Native.”  Good stuff!

Have you tried Tutor.com To Go?  Let us know what you think by posting a review on iTunes!

There’s been quite a bit of discussion in the mobile development world regarding HTML5 websites which run in a mobile browser vs. platform-native apps which run directly in the native operating system. With the passing of our 1,000^th mobile session (woo hoo!), I thought it might be helpful to explain why we went the platform-native route in building Tutor.com To Go™ for Apple iOS devices (iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad), and in the near future, Android devices.

Without question,  HTML5 is a great technology that we use at Tutor.com every day on our websites. It definitely has a place in mobile development and many websites can be effectively implemented as mobile websites utilizing HTML5.

Like all technology tools, however, the trick is selecting the right tool for the right job, and the best choice for a high quality education app like Tutor.com To Go is platform-native. Platform-native applications offer these advantages over HTML5 websites:

Access to Features

Some key device features, such as the camera, are unavailable to HTML5 websites. This means a platform-native app is the only way to allow a user to take and share a picture with their tutor in real-time. This is a key feature of our app, since it allows students to easily share their assignments. Similarly, a platform-native app is the only way to allow users to add pictures already on their mobile device to their Tutor.com Locker.

Another key feature which is not supported on all mobile browsers is socket-level connections, which provide fast communication. This means platform-native apps provide the fastest communication speed between tutors and students.

Additionally, other mobile app features like fast application switching and common user interface controls do not exist for HTML5 websites.

Richer User Experience

Above all else, performance is the critical component of user experience, and platform-native apps can better take advantage of the device’s hardware, especially in graphics-heavy conditions like our collaborative whiteboard. This means users of our whiteboard will have a better, smoother experience from a platform-native app.

Furthermore, platform-native applications are inherently tailored to the device’s physical specifications (like screen size and resolution), and follow user-interface guidelines that are consistent across all apps on the platform.  This makes for a higher-quality and more unified experience.

Standards Compliance

HTML5 is still an emerging technology. This means that browser vendors (and on Android there are more than 5 of them) have some “flexibility” in how they adhere to certain standards (for example, local data storage, gradient fills, web sockets, etc.). This inevitably means different markup and different logic for different browsers, and it means you need to test the website in all mobile browsers and browser versions. This leads to fragmented code that is difficult to maintain for a consistent experience for all users.

Your Local App Store

Each OS vendor offers its own app store, and users are accustomed to finding and installing apps via their device’s app store. HTML5 websites cannot be added to an app store. Similarly, users are accustomed to launching installed apps from their device’s home screen, and there is no automatic way to add your website to the user’s home screen.

 I hope this brief dive into the platform-native vs. HTML5 website debate was helpful in understanding why we chose to build a platform-native app for iOS devices. We look forward to a similar Android version of Tutor.com To Go in the near future!

- Russell Greenspan, VP Technology

Finding a homework, test-prep, or career resource in our SkillsCenter™ Resource Library just got easier.  We’ve redesigned the interface to show you all the materials available for a given subject—from websites and videos to sample tests and worksheets—at a glance.

That means no more scrolling through page after page of search results, looking for the kind of resource that works best for you.  Just choose the subject you need help with and pick the resource type you want.

For example, let’s say you’re taking algebra and need help with factoring.  Here’s what you’ll see:

Only interested in videos?  No problem—we’ve got 13 of them, with a step-by-step explanation in each one.  Looking for a worksheet to practice your FOILing?  We have those too.

You can pick one of our top-rated resources from this summary page, or click the “See all” links to get more of the type of resource you want.

If your local public library or school has Tutor.com, you can check out the new and improved SkillsCenter anytime—just visit your library’s website to sign in with your library card number, or sign in at our homepage with your username and password.

Please let us know what you think, and check back at blog.tutor.com for more news about the SkillsCenter.

If you thought we were excited when we passed the six million online tutoring sessions mark , then you should see our office today! We’ve created some pretty cool education technology tools over the years, but nothing compares to our new mobile app, Tutor.com To Go. For the very first time, a student can connect to a tutor using their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Our app is FREE to all Tutor.com account holders.

Tutor.com To Go lets students:

1. Connect to a live tutor for one-to-one help
2. Save and review past tutoring sessions
3. Store essays, homework problems, and other assignments in their mobile locker, and share items from their locker with a tutor
4. Take pictures of assignments, textbook pages etc.. from their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and store them in their locker
5. Access thousands of videos, sample tests, and other educational resources from the SkillsCenter™ Resource Library

It’s much cooler to use the app than to read about it. Go to www.tutor.com/togo to download the app.

You can also check out a demo on the iPad brought to you by our own Russ Greenspan, VP of Technology. Russ shows off our new online classroom optimized for the mobile environment. You’ll see how easy it is to take a picture of your assignment and work on it together with yourtutor.

We’d love to hear what you think about Tutor.com To Go. Email jkohn@tutor.com with your experience!