CS 201 Final Project

Megan Bela, Ruth Costa, Michael Lyubomirskiy, Andre Pech

The Future of Education Onlineó

Interactive Online Tutoring

 

İİİİİİİİİİİİ Interactive tutoring online is one of the most exciting developments in the field of computer-mediated education. Online tutoring harkens back to one of the fundamental principles of education that for learning to occur, the instructors has to explain the material to the student. Unlike the various other distance education schemes, tutoring online is not in any way fundamentally different from its ìreal-worldî counterpart of regular tutoring and office hours, though it is constrained a bit by technological limitations and the immaturity of the field at present.

İİİİİİİİİİİİ The primary rationale for doing tutoring online is one of logistics. Online a tutor can teach students all over the world, not just within an hour drive radius. The natural outcome of that is also the feasibility of outsourcing tutoring jobs from rich countries to low wage ones, which for the Anglosphere will likely mean the Indian Subcontinent.

İİİİİİİİİİİİ A quick Google search turns up a number of companies involved in online tutoring, including Tutor.com, India-based Educomp Datamatics, Sylvan Online, and some others. Tutor.com is distinctly interesting in that it is actually a marketplace for freelance tutors rather than a company selling tutoring services of its employees.

İİİİİİİİİİİİ Key features all the tutoring businesses seem to have in common is very high hourly rates (e.g. at east $20 per hour at Tutor.com and even more at Sylvan Online) and poorly written, uninformative websites. Now, it should be obvious that the online tutoring industry has both huge potential customer base in the West and equally huge recruiting base in India, plus it is naturally perfectly competitive. Hence high prices and poor marketing all point to the extreme immaturity of the industry, minimal market penetration, and the absence of effective competition.

İİİİİİİİİİİİ Technologically speaking, all of the tutoring seems to use chat, voice-over-IP, and shared whiteboard. Reputedly some tutors also use handwriting input devices. If the field is to grow, it is likely that handwriting input will need to become available for both the tutors and the students. Otherwise, effective communication on math-related subjects will be quite difficult.

İİİİİİİİİİİİ As part of the project, we have distributed a questionnaire to 60 tutors who work at Tutor.com and got back all 3 responses. The respondents say that tutoring is not a primary source of income for them, that they find the rates level fair and adequate, and that they rely mostly on chat and VoIP for tutoring. Only one of the respondents tutors math habitually. He notes that he uses the shared whiteboard for that but does not find it quite satisfactory. Unfortunately, he was not more specific on this essential subject.

İİİİİİİİİİİİ Looking forward into the future, we can expect lowering of rates, increasing India outsourcing, and wider acquisition of handwriting input hardware, all underlying a rapid expansion of the industry. In American K-12 the online tutoring is likely to have a very salutary effect of raising student performance and shaming the ineffective teachers into doing a better job lest they find themselves looking foolish playing progressive education style games in front of students who have already learned the material elsewhere. On the university level it is likely to get integrated into the usual practice of office hours. An additional important feature of future tutoring that we can look forward to will be logging and replaying past tutoring sessions, both for review by the student, for advertising the prowess of the tutor, and for use as a new kind of teaching material, much like a pre-recorded lecture. With any luck, interactive tutoring online might well allow the United States and England to refurbish their school systems heavily battered by decades of pernicious progressive ideology, before the rising standard of living in India will make the tutoring unduly expensive for most students.