I am very excited to announce that Des Moines Public Library in partnership with Tutor.com launched Live Homework Help (LHH) as a Proof of Concept last week. What is LHH? What is the Proof of Concept? How does LHH work?
Live Homework Help (LHH) is an online tutoring service that was launched in the mid 1990’s. The Proof of Concept makes LHH available at no cost twenty-eight hours per week and allows customers to purchase additional time if they so choose. If they buy additional hours the library will receive funds from Tutor.com. that offset the library’s investment in the product.
Between the hours of 3:00 and 7:00 P.M. every day of the week any student in grades 4 to early college who needs assistance with math, science, social studies, or English can visit our web site and be connected with a live tutor at no cost. Tutors are available on a 24/7 basis but time must be purchased by the individual outside of the 3:00 to 7:00 timeframe. The tutors have been thoroughly vetted by Tutor.com for expertise in their field and appropriate online behavior.
A typical session might look something like this:
An eighth grade student is stymied by the concept of quadratic equations. The student visits the library web site (either in the library or from home) and selects LHH. The student is asked for grade level and subject. The student selects math and the subset of algebra. The student is then, usually in less than two minutes, connected to a tutor. Once connected the tutoring session begins. The tutoring session can be equated to a one on one chat with special tools available for teaching assistance. The average length of most sessions is between fifteen and twenty minutes.
These are literally on-demand tutoring sessions.
The goal is not to provide the students with answers. Rather, the goal is to increase the student’s ability to understand concepts and increase their level of success in the classroom. I have worked with this product in two other libraries and can assure you that parent, teacher, and especially student response to LHH is consistently enthusiastic.
We will be publicizing LHH broadly in the next several weeks. This is a product that helps students learn and boosts classroom confidence. Well over 90% of students who access the service say they would recommend it to their friends.
As a reader of this blog I ask you to visit LHH and test it for yourself. If you agree that it is a boon for students help us spread the word. The very best advertising is word of mouth. So, the more of us talking the better.
Monday, March 31, 2008
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1 comments:
When and what is your next topic, I keep checking but it has been several weeks , two months since the March "Live Homework Help"! Would like to see this updated more frequently,surely there are topics for discussion.
I also enjoy "Random Acts of Librarianship" Great job and love the sense of humor!
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