Online Tutoring Background and Definitions

Online Tutoring Background and Definitions Online tutoring is a form of education which implies that the interaction between a tutor and a student is realised by means of Internet. It is practiced using variable learning methods and is addressed to distinct groups of users. Present-day networked environment offers numerous tools which allow to make online learning as efficient as conventional educational approach and even make it peerlessly more comfortable and beneficial in comparison with the  face-to-face lessons. The most primitive variant of the online tutoring can be an exchange of messages containing educational instructions, tasks and answers via e-mail or any instant messaging computer program. More advanced methods  include  using headsets or web-cameras and multimedia programs which allow to maintain audio and video contact and to involve into session as many participants as necessary. The tutoring may take the form of many-to-one tutoring when several students simultaneously log in and receive instructions from a single tutor. Another variant is peer tutoring which means that students tutor each other within specific subject and this can also be implemented by use of online conferencing interface. However the most general form is the one-on-one tutoring when individual learners or their parents purchase online tutoring time from a private tutor. Origin of Online Tutoring The idea of learning without tutor and tutee meeting face-to face was born long time ago. Although the organised distance education sprang up only in 18th-19th centuries but exchange of letters on tutoring purposes can be as ancient as a skill of writing itself. The first mentioning of distance education was found in the issue of Boston Gazette of 20th March 1728 in which ‘Caleb Phillips, Teacher of the new method of Short Hand’ declared that ‘Persons in the Country  desirous to Learn this Art, may by having the several Lessons sent Weekly to them, be as perfectly instructed as those that live in Boston.’ Another early reference on distance education was in Swedish university newspaper Lunds Weckoblad No. 30 of 1833, the advertiser offered the opportunity to study ‘Composition through the medium of the Post’. The first American system of study via correspondence was founded by Anna Eliot Tickner, daughter of a Harvard University professor, who established the Boston-based Society to Encourage Study at Home in 1873. The arrival of the computers has opened up new opportunities for many industries including education. In 1960s the first experiments on using computers for studying math and reading with children were run by Stanford University professors Patrick Suppes and Richard C. Atkinson. Their researches created the foundation for Stanfords Education Program for Gifted Youth. With time the complete systems based on Computer-Learning were developed and in 1993 a project providing an online computer-delivered lecture, tutorial and assessment using electronic mail was worked out by William D. Graziade. Further achievements in Internet and multimedia technologies gave a compelling impulse for development of the online tutoring all over the world. By the middle of 1990th first virtual schools already appeared in USA and Canada. For example in 1996 Virtual High School in Ontario offered two online-classes in biology and Canadian literature. In 1997 the countrys first state-wide Internet-based public high school was founded in Florida (Florida Virtual School) and in the 2010-11 school year it served more than 122,000 students. Online schools exist all over the world now but they are particularly popular in the United States. Some of them are even integrated into public schools and the students can study online sitting in the computer classes of the usual school. Sometimes education can be completely homeschooled or can combine elements of public/private face-to-face studies and online classes. The distance education which evolved into online tutoring in our days has a long history and it is based on an experience of several generations of tutors who applied and tested the remote approach to education on numerous ancestors of the modern students.  We at Tutorz.com fully realize all benefits and prospects of the online education. Implementing the online tutoring referral  at our web-site is our primary task at the moment and we will do our best to provide our highly esteemed users with this service in the nearest future.