had an interesting presentation yesterday from brainfuse, a competitor company to tutor.com. since i had no idea of who they were, it was a great 60 min worth of time to find out that brainfuse offers skills building and writing lab assistance that tutor does not. their skills building is aimed at the student who does not necessarily need homework help but could spend extra time in a subject giving them trouble. their writing lab is really nifty in that you upload your written document and it is returned to you (sometime later but can't remember exactly when) with the edits and comments. like tutor, they have a whiteboard. additionally, brainfuse will offer spanish language tutors during the entire service hours we sign up for! yes, they work with apple computers, too!
brainfuse has been focused on schools and started by offering assistance resulting from the no child left behind act. they are now expanding in the library markets. right now they are serving the denver and brighton schools and do have a presence in some large public library systems (e.g. las vegas and santa clara city & county).
we know from the stats that homework help is one of our most popular services; stay tuned as more information is sought out!
p.s. how're liking the new template?
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
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7 comments:
Hi Cynthia!
As we all know the world-wide-web enables the most brilliant communications - including me finding yours through the millions of blogs, thanks to Google Alerts.
I'm the library Marketing Director at Tutor.com and I was happy to be able to read your post so that I could understand current conceptions and misconceptions regarding Tutor.com's Live Homework Help®. One of the things I love most about librarians is the level-headed, stick to the facts, logic that drives most decision making. In the spirit of fact-finding, I would like to graciously offer some facts to clear a few points up...
Let me start at the end and work backwards.
1. Live Homework Help has supported Apple computers for a year now, and no download of software is ever required - we are purely web-based.
2. You may have Spanish language tutors during the full hours of your program if you like. Our subjects covered by bi-lingual tutors are are Math, Science, and Social Studies.
3. The Writing Lab you refer to works like this: Students send a file and about 24 hours later, maybe sooner, they receive their file back in an e-mail with suggestions.
Tutor.com has more than 350 (out of our 2000+ tutors) writing coaches ready to assist students with their writing, "on-demand."
Here's how it works: Within our Online Classroom there is a "Documents Tab." A student simply selects that tab, and uploads his or her file to the tutor, with NO E-MAIL. The privacy and anonymity of the student is maintained (we take our Children's Online Privacy Protection Act compliance very seriously). The tutor, or writing coach, goes over the file, makes some suggestions, helps the student understand any problem areas and what is needed, either by marking up the document and sending it back through the Online Classroom, or by discussing the issues in the secure chat window. No waiting. Most students need help the night before papers are due - not days before.
4. Tutor.com helps students with "Skills Building" every day.
Students who don't know how to write a thesis statement, find the angles of a triangle, or create a bibliography log-on with a tutor to learn these and many more skills. Our competitors offer static content, as many educational websites have done for years. We always connect students to a live tutor. You may not be aware that other services allow a tutor to help more than one student at a time. This is never the case with Tutor.com.
We are very pleased to see that there is competition in the online tutoring area. When we first developed this model, back in 1998, we knew it was a "no brainer" and that others would join the field. That's a good sign for everyone, especially the students. Good luck with your continued research, and feel free to contact me if you need any detailed information regarding Tutor.com's offerings, rather than taking the word of our competition as fact!
Thank you! I hope you'll stop by and visit us at PLA (booth 335) in March!
Best regards,
Galen Warden,
Library Marketing Director, Tutor.com
gwarden@tutor.com
646-619-8209
Galen -
Thank you so much for the information. Having heard from you provides a balanced approach to making decisions around which there's lots of budget attached to! I will keep your contact information should further questions come up.
I did not know about your writing lab nor your Spanish language availability so its great to hear you offer it.
Unfortunately, I will not be at PLA - enjoy Minnesota!
Lastly, I very much appreciated hearing how you found the blog! It prompted us to further investigage the Google Alerts feature.
Again, thx much for the additional input - would you be the contact person to talk further about your new pricing structure?
Hi Cynthia:
Someone forwarded your blog to me this evening --thanks for your comments. I would like to clarify some points from the previous posting.
1. The previous posting suggests that we don't use live tutors in our skills building sessions. With all due respect to the blogger, this assertion is simply not true. Our skills building service always involves live tutors. All content presented during a session (such as a reading passage or a math lesson) is used to help our live tutors teach more efficiently and effectively. As our clients will attest, our skills building service attracts a broad range of students, and has enabled many younger students to work on skills within a systematic, state-aligned framework. Put differently: students have the option to ask a homework question or enter a skills building session. In either case, they are connecting with a live tutor.
2. We offer Spanish language service in all subjects (math, science, language arts, and social studies) and during the same service hours/days as our English language service. This is a standard part of our service and is offered at no additional charge.
3. We staff our tutors to work in one-to-one sessions, and people who use our service can attest to the minimal/non-existent wait times.
I don't mean to further burden you with clarifications and re-clarifications, so I encourage you to contact our current clients to find out why our service is unique and how it has been received by students.
Regards,
Francesco Lecciso
Brainfuse Online Instruction
271 Madison Avenue
NY, NY 10016
646.541.6403
flecciso@brainfuse.com
Dear Cynthia,
Thanks for hosting this discussion on online tutoring services. If you're looking at these services please don't leave out Smarthinking.
Smarthinking is the only online tutoring service that's used in over 1,000 educational institutions in the U.S. and abroad.
A recent study published in The Journal of Applied Research in the Community College proved that students who used Smarthinking's online writing lab scored higher on their writing assignments than those who didn't. It also showed that the more students took advantage of the service the higher their grades. This is bonafide research, not the survey data that many companies cite. By the way, if you'd like to compare survey data we have 10 years of it showing how much our users appreciate us.
Finally, Smarthinking was awarded the prestigious CODiE award from the Software and Information Industry Association for the best instructional solution for students working at home. Other online tutoring companies have been nominated for a CODiE but Smarthinking is the only one to win one.
If you're looking for a service to help students do better in school please look at the service that educators choose, Smarthinking.
Thanks again for allowing this type of discussion on your blog.
Sincerely,
Chuck Kleiner, Ed.D.
VP Sales & Marketing
SMARTHINKING
ckleiner@smarthinking.com
www.smarthinking.com
I'm just a high school student, so I may not have the "cred" to make comments about this, but I just thought I would pass along that I have used both Brainfuse and Tutor.com. Besides, I have to leave a comment on a blog as part of a technology lesson.
I won't use the names, but I used to live in a city that had Tutor.com at their library. Then the 'rents moved and now the library that I live at uses Brainfuse.
I have to say, as a student, I have noticed a serious decline in the quality of tutors between the two companies. It's not always the case, but Brainfuse tutors don't seem as knowledgable, and I there are time they just seem to be more interested in giving answers.
The technologies seem to be equal. Slight differences but nothing that makes one better or worse.
The wait times to start working on a lesson are comparative. Tutor.com has a little longer wait time to connect, but Brainfuse connects you fast, but you usually have to wait in an empty "room" waiting for the tutor to arrive.
In conclusion, I wish my parents didn't move to the middle of nowhere for many, many reasons. Online tutoring is the least of the issues.
But, I miss Tutor.com. I even tried to log in to Tutor.com using my old library card, but it knows that I moved to a different state, so I will put up with Brainfuse.
I Can tell you that I worked as a reading Tutor for Brainfuse for almost 3 years. They have some of the sloppiest, lazy tutors around. I know this because we had to fill out detailed reports for each student and you could go in and read the comments and work done from the previous tutors. It was terrible. There are a whole bunch of them that can barely speak (type) english. I would not recommend them for anyone's child and the reason I quit is because the whole company has that same attitude of sloppiness and not getting things done in a timely manner.
I am a high school senior, who has worked with homework-helping tutors from both Tutor.com and Brainfuse. My library switched from tutor.com to brainfuse, I'm not sure on the details of why, but I've just gone with the flow.
If you wanna know the truth from a student standpoint, I've noticed that, tutor.com will lead you toward the answer, and guide you to figuring it out yourself. My experiences have usually been good but sometimes it is frustrating when the tutors don't give you a straight up answer. But we usually learn from it anyway.
Brainfuse takes a different approach in that instead of leading you toward the answer, the tutors that ive usually worked with figure out the answer and write it on the board. it takes a lot of probing and asking them to help you (kindly, of course) for them to explain it to you. But they almost always give you the answer straight up first. Which most of the time, i dont understand how they got to that answer and etc.
Both types of tutors are very nice and determined to help you, ive talked/typed with some of the nicest tutors on both systems. On both brainfuse and tutor.com there have been tutors which i dont think belonged in that category ( i asked them a question and it took them 10-15 minutes to tell me that they had no idea)
but hey, you get what you get.
anyway yea i just felt like i had to say this after reading your posts.
i think its nice that there are two different options and of course i greatly appreciate that there are online tutors for homework help on the crazy nights that i need it.
the end :D
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