... And Education for All

"All you have to do is....R-U-N ! ! !"

2010-09-29T19:29:00.001-07:00

I've heard it before. And the results were the same. In the education space companies make interesting technology, products or services that often require customers -- usually teachers -- to do something to fit the new thing into day-to-day operations. The story goes "All you have to do to use our new product is ____" (fill in the blank with things such enter students into the system, create questions, have students write things and post them into the computer, etc.).

The problem is that what you might think is a rather trivial number of steps to get the tremendous benefits of your product, may be something the typical user is just not willing (or capable given time, money and other resource constraints) to do.

Refer to the other blog post about giving away your product with the hope of winning over supporters and reference accounts. Users may be unwilling to do required steps whether the product is bought or free. It's best if you can anticipate the steps and eliminate them.

The Horrors Faced By the Little Shop (and Mega Store)

2010-09-16T23:36:00.000-07:00

You know the story -- In You've Got Mail. The "Little Bookshop Around the Corner" is threatened by the Mega Bookstore. We see this today with tutoring. The respected guy or gal tutor around the corner competes with the larger tutoring center. And just as the Mega Bookstore is threatened today by the Internet Superstore -- a store without walls or limits -- the respected tutoring center seems threatened by online tutors. Online tutoring can come with all-you-can-eat fixed pricing, 24 by 7 access, no driving and a richer learning experience. Can the Mega Bookstore compete? Can the tutoring center compete?

I was intrigued by this article: Barnes and Noble...

How is Barnes and Noble competing in this era of online ordering, reviews and tips, low prices, fast shipping and social networking? B and N says it is using its physical locations and face to face customer interaction in the stores to educate and sell their own ebook device. They say they expect to capture over 25% of the market for eBooks, eTextbooks and Digital Newsstand by 2013, projecting over $1 billion in digital revenue by that time.

Can brick and mortar tutoring centers leverage their local presence to compete? Can they reinvent themselves and find new revenue sources and opportunities and not go the way of the little shop around the corner?

I give it away and like love, it's going to come back!

2010-09-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

Several clients have tried an age-old strategy...but, sadly, one that doesn't work! They have given a few customers -- in this case, school districts -- free products and services in the hopes it will build overall awareness, produce outstanding "braggable" results, and compel sales from other customers.

The reason this doesn't usually work in the education space is too often these freebies go to (and are part of a deal with) the people who recommend, approve or buy products, but not to the people you need to make the trial a success. In education, you have BUYERS who make decisions and spend money on things and USERS who need to implement these things successfully in the classroom. Just because a principal or superintendent has decided to buy or accept a free product, it doesn't mean a teacher will want to use it, know how, or figure out how to incorporate the product in the typical school day.

If you give the product to the USER (e.g. teacher) and he or she is hot-to-trot to use it and knows how, you have a better than even chance something will come out of the trial. But then your user needs clear instructions and guidance to make it work. Results tend to be spotty at best and you lose a lot of time running studies and watching some teachers do things right and others barely trying to use the product.

ONE EXCEPTION! I happened upon a strategy which put the free trial in the category of a controversial but successful television event -- one that showcased the product in front of over 3,000,000 people as the solution to a large bi-partisan problem. With good positioning, credibility and timing, this produced startling measurable results.

Contact me at john@edumetrix.com and I'll be happy to discuss this example.

Face-to-face vs. Online Tutoring: A Rose Is A Rose

2008-03-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

I recently presented at the Education Industry Investment Forum in Phoenix on the challenges and opportunities of online tutoring. An audience member asked if online tutoring is as effective as face-to-face tutoring. Jim Hermens, president of Educate Online (formerly eSylvan/Sylvan Online), said that Educate had determine that online tutoring was as effective as face-to-face as measured by post- vs. pre-test gains on standardized tests. I can vouch for that as I conducted the three year effectiveness study 1999-2002 at Sylvan Learning Centers (now Educate) which looked at the gains of over 500,000 students who took Sylvan center-based (face-to-face) tutoring in reading and math vs. online tutoring.

The good news is that online tutoring is as effective as face-to-face and the better news is that online tutoring is more convenient, flexible and affordable than face-to-face tutoring. It’s not surprising that online tutoring should be equally as effective when both face-to-face and online tutoring are conducted using the same instructional model.

Our goal now is to push the online environment further to go beyond what was possible in a face-to-face world. Rather than be tethered to books, worksheets and static problems, online tutoring makes it possible for students to use engaging electronic/eLearning tools such as simulations, animations, videos and virtual experiments. Soon we hope to demonstrate conclusively that online tutoring with its rich resources and tools is more effective than face-to-face tutoring.

Fix the Blame or Fix the Problem?

2008-03-23T21:18:00.000-07:00

Elissa Gootmany in her NY Times article Passing Eighth Grade Gets a Little Harder describes how the Bloomberg administration won approval for a new policy that will not permit eighth graders to move to the next grade if they don’t have minimum basic skills in math and English. Parents were opposed to this new policy.

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein defended the policy – “In the end, passing kids through the system without making sure they’re ready for the next grade level is not a formula for success,” he said. “Our job is not to move a kid out of middle school; our job is to move a kid from middle school to high school, prepared for high school.”

Four years ago the Mayor announced tougher new promotion criteria for the third grade to end social promotion (moving a child from grade to grade with his or her peers regardless of their mastery of the current grade’s material or readiness for the next). That and subsequent policies for fifth and seventh graders resulted in fewer students being held back than before. Some students took and passed summer school.

Opponents of tougher policies claim that tougher hold-back policies is can frustrate and embarrass students so they more likely to drop out. Some parents believe this might be especially true for eighth graders who are not allowed to advance to high school. Others suggest that some students need the extra year to master the appropriate material.

We’re all into blame these days, aren’t we? The kids don’t know their stuff so who should we blame…the teachers? The administrators? How about we fix the problem and not the blame. Educators believe all kids can learn. What this policy rightfully proposes is that it can take some students longer to learn things than other students and they should be given that chance before moving on to the next grade where they are unprepared and start off the year behind and frustrated.

Dr. John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Neither Rain, Nor Snow, Nor Ship Anchor…

2008-02-07T07:05:00.000-08:00

You know the tale. A butterfly flaps its wings in China and it affects political events in the USA. We are definitely part of a global economy. Events there affect us here. In the article “Internet outage in Mideast, Asia felt in NJ” by Kelly Heyboer inThe Star-Ledger (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/01/internet_outage_in_mideast_asi.html) it describes how a ship’s anchor dragging across the sea floor damaged two underwater cables carrying vital internet traffic to parts of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain.

The Internet disruption affected the Dubai stock exchange and posed a challenge for companies in India that rely on internet connectivity. At TutorVista we noticed it right away. On any given day, a particular tutor’s internet, power or computer can be down. You know how it is when you have a power failure or your cable TV connection is down because of a storm. These things can happen.

If we don’t see a tutor in place and ready to go shortly before they are scheduled to do a tutoring session, we automatically activate an alternate tutor so the session goes off without a hitch. It’s part of the redundancies we build into our business. What else do we do? Our tutors come from 23 major cities across India and a half dozen other countries so a storm or other problem affecting one city or a group doesn’t affect all our tutors. We can easily transfer traffic from tutors in Mumbai, for example, to ones in the Philippines.

We’re definitely part of a connected, global supply chain. Things that happen in one part of the world do affect people in another. But this isn’t a new concept. We know that freezing weather in Florida can affect orange juice prices and availability across the US. I remember years ago when there was a peanut butter shortage for some reason.

We are one week into this internet disruption from the anchor. We continue to reassign tutoring sessions to tutors with good connectivity out of our vast workforce. But that’s consistent really with the power and design of the internet in the first place. There’s a zillion paths an internet packet or message can take. Disruptions and roadblocks along the way are a fact of life and the beauty of the internet is it’s designed to deal with that.

Today it’s a boat anchor. Tomorrow it might be a storm, a strike…who knows. But just like the mailman’s creed, “Neither rain, nor snow, nor dark of night shall keep me from my appointed rounds” the tutoring will happen!

Dr. John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Doing Something Different

2008-02-03T07:06:00.000-08:00

In her article “The Call for Epochal Leadership” in Business Week, Shoshana Zuboff, retired professor of the Harvard Business School, describes how it takes new, industry-shifting leaders to enlighten and inspire us to adopt new beliefs and ways of looking at and doing things. Those new ways open up incredible possibilities. She mentioned that education is an area where consumers want to experience – need to experience – a new kind of renaissance or redefinition of how things are done, what they should cost, and where you get them.

To set the stage for this kind of transformation, Zuboff cites the example of the iPod and iTunes and the impact they had on the mass consumption of music….how they redefined a new model that completely shifts the relationship each of us has with music as a result.

In education, we at TutorVista.com have embarked on a journey to redefine where and how education services are delivered, and how much they should cost. Just like the Model T challenged notions of how vehicles should be made and that in turn led to a radical fractioning of the price resulting in affordable transportation for the masses, TutorVista believes that if you use technology to connect experienced, passionate tutors from around the world with students who need them, we can deliver better quality education, personalized service and convenience at a mass market price. Students talk naturally to a tutor a half-a-world away and write, draw and work on a shared virtual whiteboard – a kind of electronic piece of paper student and tutor share. We can provide unlimited tutoring, homework help, remediation and quiz preparation for a low, fixed price. This fundamentally changes education. It’s now more personal, available, accessible, convenient, affordable and timely.

But it isn’t enough that the light has been shined on a powerfully enabling global system of new possibilities. There are old, entrenched systems in place that are out to assert the status quo at every turn and undermine innovation and a more efficient new order. Look at supplemental education services. Instead of encouraging new models that will bring more and better help to students where and when they need it most, rules designed to ensure the same people are the only ones in the game doing the same things they always have serve to stifle innovation and lash us to the mast of the past, long after that ship has sunk.

It’s essential we break the molds that doom us to the ways of the past. Repeating that past isn’t going to do us any good. We need to do something different!

Dr. John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Selling Into The Future

2008-01-15T14:54:00.000-08:00

When the transistor was first invented, it enabled television makers to replace vacuum tubes with devices that were a fraction of the size, many times less power-hungry, more reliable & durable. Did these new transistors get adopted right away? Did TV makers rush to incorporate the new technology into their products?

No, they didn’t. As described by Kevin Kelly in his book New Rules for the New Economy, one particular transistor made by Robert Noyce and his partner Jerry Sanders was all these good things. Problem was, the transistor was significantly more expensive to make ($100 each) than the vacuum tube that was being sold to TV makers for $1.08 each. The partners wanted to sell the devices to UHF tuner makers but they couldn’t sell a part that was nearly 100 times as expensive regardless of how small and efficient it was. They knew that as utilization and production rose, the cost to product the new part would drop to the point it would be more economical than a vacuum tube (not to mention the size, power and other advantages). But they also knews they couldn’t build traction for the adoption of the new part at the higher price.

What did the partners do to motivate people to use the new device and help it take off? They dropped the price to $1.05 each – a few pennies less than the vacuum tube! They dropped the sell price on the part despite the fact they had at the time no sales volume and hadn’t even built the factory to churn them out! As Sanders said, “We were selling into the future.”

How well did this work? UHF tuner manufacturers indeed bought transistors at $1.05 each. Within two years, the cost to manufacturer a transistor dropped so much, the partners could sell them for 50 cents each and still made a profit!

Can this apply to education? I think it can. Take the idea of doing tutoring over the internet. At first this is very costly to set up – hardware; software; technology infrastructure; recruit, train, certify & moderate tutors; build scheduling systems; design customer communication and relationship management tools; curriculum and education resources – this takes a huge investment. But instead of charging what it costs you come up with a price that you think makes sense in the long term. You hope they come and you anticipate the cost efficiency you expect to realize when the volume is there. You sell into the future! That’s what we’re doing at TutorVista.com with unlimited tutoring for a fixed price each month. Make the tutoring budget predictable and part of a simple subscription fee so a student doesn’t need one eye on the tutor and the other eye on the clock.

“If you build it, they will come!” It’s built! Time will tell, but the goal is to revolutionize and redefine what education services should cost and make quality, convenient and effective tutoring available to everyone. …And education for all!

Dr. John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

"The Check’s In The Mail" or "Smart Money?"

2008-01-08T10:12:00.000-08:00

A buddy called me – quite excited. “I don’t know how I won, but I won!” he exclaimed. Then he let out a “Whoo hoo!”

“Won what?” I asked.

“Some lottery or sweepstakes!” he replied.

I came right over to his house. He showed me a glossy, nicely printed letter that explained he had won $58,750 in unclaimed prize money and the enclosed check for $3,319 to assist with his “international clearance fee.”

Sounded a little weird to me, but then he handed me his check. It was everything a check should be and then some – a work of art – colorful, watermarked, MICR encoded account number, and was drawn on a company in Dallas Texas. There was quite a bit of very small writing on the back side. I thought, “Heh! That’s where they get you! You cash the $3,319 check and by endorsing it, you have agreed to buy swampland or you’ve taken out a loan at 25% interest or whatever. But the fine print (very very fine for my old eyes) simply said that the check had many features to ensure that its authenticity could be easily determined. It had a watermark, it had patented features like a place for fingerprints with the endorsement, and the real delight was it had special red ink with the patent numbers for this feature and if you blow on or rub the red ink, it disappears. Well I blew and where I did, the red ink disappeared!

“Looks very real, very authentic indeed” I thought.

So I read the letter again. He had won some unclaimed prize money from Readers Digest, Publishers Clearing House, Online gaming, or…” – it wasn’t specific on how or where he had been bestowed with this windfall but here it was. All he had to do is call the US Transfer Agent so-and-so at a particular phone number and take care of paperwork. There was a customer number printed on the letter and bar-coded (presumably) in the margin. My friend was to tell the Transfer Agent his special customer number to claim his prize. And he should definitely NOT reveal this number to anyone else before he collects his winnings lest they jump in line ahead of him and get what’s supposed to be rightfully coming to him.

I suggested we Google-around and see what we could find.

The name of the prize sweepstakes award company on the letterhead and check was “Henry S. Miller Interests.” Google found all kinds of entries for “Henry S. Miller” but nothing for “Interests.” It seems HSM is a long-standing, respected real estate company in Texas.

The bank listed on the check? Yes. It exists. They definitely have a branch office on Preston.

Strange though -- The area code for the phone numbers for the Dallas Texas bank and the US Transfer Agent wasn’t one I recognized. 705. It purported to be a Dallas phone number but I looked that up and it is an area code for Ontario Canada.

I called the number for fun. Got a recording that said their message box was full and to leave a message. More Googling. The phone number for the US Transfer Agent is a cell phone.

Well, by then we figured out (as you no doubt have by now too) that this was a scam. It was clever and different enough though it made a couple people who have been offered and failed to pursue hundreds of millions of dollars in variations of the Nigerian Scam really wonder if this is legit.

Later that afternoon I was at a meeting and mentioned this to a banker. She said it was an active, vigorously pursued scam these days. You call the US Transfer Agent and they tell you they overestimated the cost of the International Transfer Fee and would you please cash the check in your account and wire the difference to them. Of course you HAVE their $3,319 and you can cash the check first and are completely protected.

Trick is the US bank you deposit it into must, by law, give you access to the money you have deposited in a few days. But by the time this pretty, watermarked, special red ink that disappears check makes it’s way to the branch on Preston in Dallas and is discovered to be bogus (no firm of that name, no real account behind it) and back to your bank, you will have already wired the “difference” to the US Transfer Agent and maybe treated yourself to some goodies with what’s left.

Then – days later – your bank tells you the check is no good, charges you $6 for depositing a bad check, and by the way, please pay the bank back the $3,319 you have spent already. You won’t get back your wire transfer and well, you might as well enjoy the goodies you bought because, well, you did buy them and will have to pay for them when you make your bank whole for the money you took out. And the $58,750? Not a chance.

If you search for scams involving “International Transfer Fees” you will see lots of web sites with the always unfortunate tales of people who were bit by this variation of the Nigerian Scam. “I thought I would cash it and even if I didn’t call the guy up and arrange for the international transfer fee, at least I would have the first bit of money” and “I was so sure it was real I made my husband deposit it and then go straight to the travel agent so we could book our Caribbean cruise! He did and then…” Each story was sad and demonstrated how people who would never fall for the “Help me get my dead husband’s millions out of the country” fell victim to this one.

Why did they go along with it? It seems a real check in your hands for money you didn’t know was coming was a big inducement for checking reality at the door. One twenty year old on the web site describing similar scams said, “I understand all this discussion about how this works but I don’t get it…how can they afford to send out all these $3,000-4,000 checks?”

You want to believe the check is good and want to believe you can’t get stung if you deposit it and the bank tells you it’s good before you spend it.

Have you seen similar scams? Why is it the scams by mail have a particularly fresh appeal to people who are otherwise sufficiently hardened to the email scams? Or what’s the uptake on those email scams? I see so many in my inbox in any given week I can’t believe people fall for them, but they must. But this emailed check scam was costing the scammers some money – 90c Canadian in postage (the letter came from Canada and not from the purported Dallas bank), the cost of glossy paper and color printing, and that check was definitely an expensive bit of tom-foolery with its heat sensitive ink.

How do we stay ahead of these guys? And how do we educate people about these scams? Is self-education through web searches the order of the day? Or is this a case not of "Buyer Beware!" but "Casher Beware!"?

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T10:10:00.001-08:00

Wishing you a safe, prosperous, healthy and happy new year!

Check out my guest blog in Education Week today . . .

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/edbizbuzz/

John

Lions and Tigers and Elephants, (&) Oh Deer!

2007-12-17T03:03:00.000-08:00

I’m in India – Two flights, 8500 miles and twenty-two plus hours and here I am. It’s my third trip. I feel I’m a pretty seasoned India traveler. For example, I know to put mosquito repellent on before I step off the plane. It’s past midnight so the repellant is designed to keep away the malaria-carrying night-time mosquitoes vs. the mosquitoes during the day that carry dengue fever.

One can take anti-malaria medicine in case some of the night-time mosquitoes find their mark despite the repellent. There isn’t an anti-dengue medicine as far as I know. I do know something about dengue fever, though. My father was an army doctor stationed near Pearl Harbor in Hawaii during WWII and was tasked with figuring out where and how soldiers were contracting an awful hemorrhagic fever (now known as dengue). He got out a map of Oahu and charted the route of soldiers who came down with dengue. He figured out most of them waited at one of the bus stops on the island near standing water. My father surmised mosquitoes were to blame and ordered all standing water drained out from flower pots, puddles on the ground, etc. The army was able to stave off the dengue-carrying daytime mosquitoes and hence the disease.

With mosquito repellant applied, I exit the plane and my India adventure resumes.

After a week of meetings and tutor-business stuff, I had the pleasure to travel with TutorVista CEO Ganesh and his family to the mountains of Coonoor, around 300 km from Bangalore. To get there we drove through Bannerghatta National Park that has lions, tigers, monkeys, deer, elephant, and panthers.

http://www.indiantigers.com/bannerghata-national-park.html

Thirty-six hairpin turns up the mountain (each numbered and labeled), we visit a wonderful town with a temple elephant decorated trunk to tail and flower-covered float.

http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/16/stories/2007121653390300.htm

Finally we end up in Conoor. It’s a nice hill stations in the mountains at an elevation of 1,800 meters known for its tea plantations.

http://www.coonoor.com/about.htm

It’s remarkable but even in this quaint town in the mountains past the lions, tigers, elephants and monkeys we have a TutorVista tutor! He tutors students who live 8,500 miles and 300 km away from the comfort and convenience of his home. This truly is a flat world!

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Safe Tutoring

2007-12-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

Child safety is a serious matter. The news frequently reports about teachers and others in authority who violate trust and act inappropriately with the children they are supposed to shepherd. Parents rely on coaches, teachers, tutors, and others to help guide and develop their kids.

But in today’s computer and internet world, how safe is your child if he or she works with an online tutor? We all know that on-line tutoring is very convenient. Mom and dad don’t have to drive the student to a tutor’s home or a business location. Students can go home after school and log in for their on-line tutoring session and no tutor physically comes to the house. But despite its convenience, is it safe? How do we ensure students are safe and secure while doing on-line tutoring?

There are ways to ensure child safety in an on-line tutoring environment:

On-line tutoring means your child is not physically with the tutor. Student and tutor are separated by distances as much as half-a-world away. For a tutor in India, it could cost a year’s salary for the tutor to fly where the student is or for the student to make the trip to India. And tourist visa’s and passports are required. This physical separation is a benefit for child safety.
Use steadily employed tutors rather than a tutor exchange or independent contractors. Avoid situations where predators can be connected with kids online under the guise of tutoring the way some predators hang out in chat rooms. Don’t use a tutoring exchange that lets anyone off the street post an ad and connect with kids.
Ensure your online tutor has passed a certification course that includes child protection.
Verify your online tutor’s qualifications and ensure he or she has had a professional, educational and personal background check.
Monitor student-tutor exchanges. Forbid your child from engaging in any student-tutor communications outside a tutoring session and monitor that communication in real time or through recordings. At TutorVista, students and tutors are required to interact with one another only during tutoring sessions and using our service delivery platform. Tutors understand this policy (it’s part of our certification process) and know too that violation of this policy will result in immediate dismissal.
Be involved in your child’s education – in school and online

Students using online tutoring can get safe, secure and protected educational help in a way face-to-face tutoring may not even support.

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Tell Me What You Want, What You Really Really Want

2007-12-03T15:06:00.000-08:00

Last week I attended the SIIA Ed Tech Business Forum with hundreds of education technology & services providers, funders, marketers, biz-dev people and press. In a keynote speech, Dr. Thomas Houlihan from the Institute for Breakthrough Performance described problems in education as “systems” problems that can’t be solved with a band-aid or one-dimensional change. He also invoked the attendees to take a leadership role.

In another session a panelist remarked that education products and services providers need to ask school administrators and teachers for direction – what do they want? He suggested we build what people ask for…that they know best.

Like “It takes a village to raise a child,” I believe it takes a system to teach a child. Problems with school program implementation are often systems problems. This system includes teachers, books, assessments, policy, administration – all pieces working in concert together. Changing one part of the mix almost never significantly changes the system.

So back to the panelist’s recommendation – should we defer and ask teachers and administrators what they want? Do they know best?

I don’t think so. If you look at all the money that is spent on education, the value ascribed to it, and the tremendous number of vendors who are all too happy to create the products people have asked for, we would certainly by now have the products and services the industry really need if customers could describe what they wanted.

But innovation and major system change hasn’t happened yet. Not even from listening to what administrators and teachers want. We need to be guided by their dreams and the realities of today’s classroom and school and all the components that make up that system, but then we need to be leaders and invent something -- something exciting, fresh and better than what we have been using to date…what we “really, really want.” That’s the job for true industry leaders.
John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Using Tutoring To Increase Student Persistence & Graduation Rates

2007-11-29T07:33:00.001-08:00

Many students drop out of community college and four year programs because they can't handle "gatekeeper" courses such as basic developmental math and writing. In a recent survey conducted by Communty College of Philadelphia, 20% of students dropped out for academic and program availability issues.

In this interview on the EDUInsight.com project web site, I address this drop out problem and how it negatively impacts students and educational institutions.

You can check out this interview at http://www.eduinsight.com/archive/john_stuppy.php

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Just the Facts, Mann

2007-11-25T23:09:00.000-08:00

My deep love for teaching and learning was sparked in large measure by good family friends, Bertha and Maurice Mann. They owned and ran the Hollywood Professional School in Hollywood, California. HPS is where Betty Grable, Ryan O’Neal, the Beach Boys, Jackson Five, Peggy Fleming, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Val Kilmer, Melanie Griffith, Valerie Bertinelli, most of the Brady Bunch kids and many other actors and athletes went to school. It provided the perfect schedule and flexibility for students who were working professionals.

Mrs. Mann let me attend summer school there as a child and I always looked forward to it. The classes were lively and interesting and Mrs. Mann had a passion for education. She gave me a lot of encouragement and support. I loved to learn and learn new ways to learn.

Mrs. Mann often shared learning techniques she came across at conferences. When I was seven she shared a new learning idea she heard about. It was a way to learn math facts – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The idea is students should just know that “3 x 7 = 21” or “11-4=7” rather than having to figure it out. Having math facts at the ready for rapid recall means students don’t have to waste time constantly calculating those basic things.

Mrs. Mann’s simple, effective technique? She gave me a couple dozen math facts flash cards. These were 8”x3” stiff cardboard cards with things like “2+9=11” and “7+8=15.” She had me tape them in strategic places around my room. I put one flash card on the headboard of my bed, the ceiling high above my pillow, wall by the light switch, wall above my desk, closet door, inside of my bedroom door, outside of my door, bathroom mirror over the sink, wall above the toilet, wall opposite the toilet, fridge door…everywhere. As I moved around my room each day, I saw these math facts. After a few days Mrs. Mann gave me new cards to replace the ones I had learned. Before long I knew all my math facts cold.

This learning method wasn’t high tech. But it was simple and it surely worked.

I still recommend Mrs. Mann’s “immersion” method for learning math facts today. While computers can display math facts flash cards and have some interesting features, they can’t be freely used everywhere a paper flash card can. Computerizing every education tool for the sake of computerizing them doesn’t make sense. Are there “back to basics” ways to learn we’ve lost sight of? Are there new types of manipulatives that bring concepts to life? Can we be more mindful of ways to leverage and stretch our resources and use the right tool for the job?

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Same Race – Better Horse

2007-11-18T17:34:00.000-08:00

At first, some innovations are not as cost-effective or fine-tuned as the products or services they replace. Clayton Christianson’s book The Innovators Dilemma pointed out that in the early stages, many innovations are a poor replacement. But then over time…that’s when some innovations shine. Christianson also pointed out that it’s often impossible for existing, entrenched companies to successfully launch innovations. They have too much invested and are set in their ways.

Take a look at online learning. Eleven years ago I started working with one-on-one on-line tutoring over the internet. The idea was a student and tutor would use their computer to talk and interact through a shared virtual whiteboard. At the time, the voice interaction was pretty crummy -- echoes, dropped calls, gaps and delays were common. It wasn’t a pleasant experience and this was despite the fact one had to pay more for the technology infrastructure.

However, look at where things have moved today. Now, the technology used for voice chatting over the internet and sharing a virtual whiteboard is a reliable commodity. It works! And students love the whole platform and thrive on the online experience.

But is it effective? That’s the big question, isn’t it? I did a study of over 500,000 K-12 students who were tutored in reading and math –face to face vs. on-line. The result? There was no difference in effectiveness gains as measured by pre-- vs. post-test growth on standardized tests between the two groups. .

So students getting tutoring via the internet achieved the same gains as those students going to a learning center and meeting with their tutor face to face. This is an encouraging finding for the education technology industry. It suggests you don’t have to sacrifice education results for convenience.

Online tutoring is more convenient and affordable and highly effective . The next stage in the evolution of the industry is to figure out how to take advantages of technology to increase the effectiveness beyond face-to-face tutoring. More on that in an upcoming blog.

Have you taken an online course? Was it engaging? What factors made it relevant and interesting? More or less effective?

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

The Butterfly Flapped Its Wings and Amazingly, Forty Years Later…

2007-11-12T07:40:00.000-08:00

I went for a walk. And then I saw one…and then another…they were everywhere! Monarch butterflies were flitting and flying all around the neighborhood. There weren’t any there yesterday but now I could see at least 20.

Where did they come from? Did they just hatch?

I started thinking of the 8” think dictionary my family had at the top of the stairs in my house where I grew up, and the three feet of shelf space each that the Encyclopedia Britannica, World Book and Book of Knowledge took up in our family library. Forty years ago, I was equally curious then about how certain words should be spelled and where things like Monarch butterflies came from, but my intellectual pursuits back then usually followed this pattern…

“Mom…How do you spell 'mnemonic'?”

“Go look it up in the dictionary,” my mom would reply.

So I would trudge up the stairs, open the big book to “N” and look for “nemonic.” Of course the monstrous dictionary didn’t put a little red squiggle under the word when I looked it up in the wrong place, nor did it suggest “mnemonic.” If I didn’t find the word right away I was less likely to try and satisfy intellectual curiosity the next time.

Using the encyclopedias back then was usually more productive – assuming my brothers put back each of the volumes the last time they used them.

But this is 2007. While I walked, I pulled out my Treo phone, logged into Google, and searched for “Monarch Butterfly.”

Wow! While I was still walking among these little delicate creatures, I discovered:

* Monarch’s migrate as much as 3,000 miles flying South for Winter and North in the Spring
* They are poisonous snacks for predators and are brightly colored to make sure predators know they aren’t the yummy ones

So these butterflies didn’t just hatch today – they literally “blew into town” and miraculously, could travel many miles a day while seemingly flitting about.

What a great time we live in when we can easily learn things just in time and on the spot! To the three R’s standard when I grew up – Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic, we should add two more:
4. Reach – connecting with people through email & postings, and
5. Research – easy, fast, productive searches to a wealth of information and resources

Has your life changed with Reach and Research?

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Voice of Reason

2007-11-05T07:39:00.000-08:00

Should you use online tutoring with a typed “chat” setup or voice-based program? I’ve been sold on voice-based online tutoring for years. This means the student and tutor talk to each other using their computers though they can be thousands of miles apart. How? A cool technology called “Voice over IP” (VoIP) makes this possible. A computer phone call usually sounds cleaner and clearer than a regular phone call. The student plugs in a headset with a built in microphone to his or her computer’s speaker and microphone jacks and uses that to talk to and listen to a tutor with the same setup far away.

It amazes me when online tutoring companies try to fob off text-chat-only services as state-of-the-art high-tech learning platforms. Some say “The jury is out on VoIP” or “You don’t need voice to explain problems because things like math are the ‘language of symbols’ and you don’t need a second ‘language’ to understand, explain and solve those kinds of problems.” This is rubbish! They say this because they can’t support voice! That, and they juggle 3-5 students at a time with text chat while a voice conversation is geared around one-on-one tutoring.

Many students type slowly. They have a question but they are hunting and pecking their way to ask it. And they wait for their tutor to type an answer – then they have to read that answer. Or was that the answer to the previous thing the student typed? Of course if you are getting tutored in a library or other setting where talking is not allowed, a text-chat service makes sense.

But if voice is possible, it makes no sense to limit the interaction to typing. Speaking is five times faster than typing for most. Students quickly say what they don’t understand and explain what they’re thinking. Voice is best!

Voice chat is easy, reliable, and uses inexpensive tools such as a head-set with built in microphone ($16-35). And if for some reason VoIP isn’t working, switch to an alternate VoIP tool. If all else fails and there’s no VoIP platform that’s working? Then you suffer like in the “old days” and use text chat!

Have you had a chance to compare voice-based tutoring to text-chat tutoring?

I welcome your thoughts and comments.
John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Further Thoughts on Textbooks: How did they get so big and what can we do about it?

2007-11-04T05:53:00.000-08:00

People complain about the price of textbooks. Rising textbook prices diminish the affordability and availability of “Education for all.” I was pleased to receive emails responding to my first blog on textbooks.

Dan Rinn at Cengage Learning wrote that many factors have caused higher production costs for textbook makers and these costs result in higher bookstore prices. Dan pointed out Cengage’s ichapters.com provides lower cost digital access to textbook materials and is one way his company is addressing the high cost of textbooks.

How did textbook prices get so high? Art Bardige in his book New Physical Ideas Are Here Needed describes what happened in the textbook industry over the last 20+ years.

In the 1980’s elementary textbook publishers made most of their money from “consumable” workbooks sold each year for each new class of students, not the textbooks. In college, students were likely to keep their textbooks for their personal library so publishers sold new books to each class.

But in elementary schools, workbooks went out of fashion and out of budget around the same time schools could easily copy materials with high speed copiers. Profit from workbooks took a dive. Publishers added material to books for obscure state standards to win state adoptions and began making books more colorful and bigger.

In college, book prices reached the point where students could no longer justify keeping old class textbooks for their library so publishers started making new, bigger editions every year or two -- older editions were obsolete.

Bigger books means higher development, production, shipping, and warehousing costs to the publisher and higher costs to schools and students. The typical textbook today can be 4 times larger than the textbook 20-30 years ago.

What can we do to stop textbook bloat? Seven years ago I worked with the formation of a portfolio company called Classwell Learning. Classwell deliverd online assessments to identify a student's skill gaps and let the teacher select supplementary materials for each individual student under a single school or district subscription fee. The teacher clicked a button and a colorful, personalized workbook printed at the local Kinko’s. Each student had only the explanations, examples, and problems he or she needed.

This seemed like a great idea. But like other innovative ideas, it seems to have gotten acquired, incorporated and then diluted or forgotten. It was ahead of its time. Can we catch up now?

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

No More Pencils – No More Books!

2007-10-29T08:32:00.000-07:00

I was stunned. I was at the bookstore with my son to buy his college textbooks and was aghast that several of them cost more than $100 each! Why haven’t textbooks gotten smaller, lighter and cheaper over time the way computers and so many other things have done? And if textbooks have gotten more expensive, have they gotten better?

When I was in high school there were some math concepts I just didn’t “get.” My mother arranged for my teacher to tutor me after school. Within a month my tutor filled in those critical skill gaps and I finally “got it.” I could apply these skills in new areas – from algebra to physics, to chemistry, stats, etc. I was really unstoppable once I had this solid foundation.

What magic textbook did my tutor use? He didn’t use any textbook at all. He had a good sense of what I was supposed to know at that grade and he gave me some problems to figure out if I knew how to do those things. If I didn’t, he worked through the steps so I knew what to do.

Are textbooks better than other tools? In the last few years I have seen engaging software tools and resources that take learning to a whole new level. Simulations, animations and videos bring things to life in ways printed materials can’t.

While my math textbook showed me a few examples while modern day simulation tools let a student create an infinite number of their own examples and scenarios..

Should children continue to use textbooks? It’ss definitely easier to hand out a book and know each student can access the material at home, on the bus, in the library and the classroom without specialized equipment, connectivity or power. It’s nice to know exactly what each student is looking at on a particular page.

But can we reach a state where no one needs pencil and paper and instead, interactive computer-based tools bring fresher information with up-to-the-second corrections, unlimited examples and a sense of control? A book can’t learn what you’ve done and make recommendations for what you need to do next. A learning management system can.

Can we usher in a world of “no more pencils, no more books?” What are the advantages of a textbook? Do you think there’s a better way? Is there a way to implement this better way? I welcome your ideas and feedback.

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

How To Pick the Perfect Puppy: Is There a "Pop-test" for Students?

2007-10-22T05:38:00.000-07:00

I love dogs. Well, I love good dogs – ones that are good defenders but not aggressive. They like to play, but know when it’s time to relax. Oh. And one that doesn’t tell a burglar where all the good stuff is in the house for the price of a pat and a scratch!

So how do you pick the perfect puppy? I have had good luck with my own K9 SAT, also known as the “Pop-test.” Take a brown paper sack, fill it with air and close the opening with your fist, then smack it down into the palm of your hand to make a huge popping noise.

The results are usually that the puppy that passes out won’t hold up to the rigors of yard patrol, visitors and the occasional dropped dish. Ones that bite the bag (and the hand holding it) are predictably unpredictable -- better to stay clear of those. Ones that don’t notice could be deaf or too much of a slug. But the ones that jump up inquisitively and want to check it out are the kinds of pups that can make good dogs.

Is there a “Pop-test” for children? What about high-stakes tests like the SAT? Is this a Pop-test that can accurately determine which college should accept a student? In many parts of the world, high stakes tests determine completely where a child can go to school . If there are 351 openings in the class and you scored 349th, you’re in! If you scored 352nd from the top on the test, you’re out of luck.

In the US however, college admission is more complex. Many colleges take into consideration high SAT scores, exemplary grades, letters of reference, athletics, community service and special circumstances. With all those factors, it’s hard to imagine how a school can make the best overall choices regarding incoming students.

Seniors in high school may be surprised (and a bit concerned) to see the lines on college applications requesting information on activities, groups, volunteerism, sports, etc. It would be too late do a project, recast grades for the last few years or try out for the football team at this point.

About the only thing the student can likely improve is his or her SAT or ACT test. Students may think “I’ve been through high school so I’m naturally ready for the SAT.” Wrong. Or, “You can’t prepare for a test like that.” Wrong again.

Knowing even just a few things about these tests can help students better their scores. And regardless of the debate over the fairness of such tests, a better score can only help.

I read a recent article in Money magazine that chided parents for spending money on SAT and ACT prep courses, college application counseling and other services. But if you’re a puppy in the basket, do you want to run the wrong way or do the wrong thing when you get the Pop-test? It's best to figure out how to improve your chances of getting picked to be in a good home.

POP!

I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com

Online Dating & Tutoring

2007-10-15T05:37:00.000-07:00

I was at a conference recently and during a session on viral marketing, one of the panelists talked about the value of community-building – how beneficial it is to attract people to your site and motivate those loyal members to invite others. This is the key to the success of internet powerhouses like FaceBook and MySpace.

The panelist then cited the dichotomy of online dating sites. They are popular and used by many people who value the service, but those same people rarely tell their friends they are on the site. These sites may have loyal fans but those fans aren’t inclined to tell people they use the product or how well the service has worked for them.

As I listened, it struck me how many parents who have been using tutoring for their children for years do the same thing. Like online dating, tutoring is something people find worthwhile but they don’t tell anyone they are using it. Why is that? Why the “tutor-but-don’t-tell” practice? Are people embarrassed their children need help?

Tutoring is a sensible resource for all students – those who are struggling, the ones who are keeping up and students who want to get ahead. But some parents may feel there is a stigma attached to tutoring. The reality is, those parents are acting in their child’s best interest. Tutoring empowers children by helping them overcome educational obstacles. So why did my friends not want to tell anyone they were getting tutoring for their kids?

Or could they be trying to get a competitive edge for their kids? Friends are friends, but if your kid is competing with the neighbor’s kid for admission to the local university, I suppose there’s some logic to it. You would think though that kids who are in the same school, who have the same teachers, perhaps go to the same orthodontist, could each use tutoring to improve their situation.

If you’ve seen kids who were struggling and saw the effect it had on their self-esteem, then saw the effect that tutoring and the subsequent improvement had on them, you would agree that individualized help and attention is essential. I struggled with some key concepts in math and algebra, received tutoring and it made all the difference. Nothing is better than the smile on the face of a child who once struggled, and is now proud of their grades and accomplishments. You know that every child deserves tutoring.

Isn’t the world a better place if more students learn what they are supposed to and leave school as capable, skilled, productive young adults? Isn’t it better for society to make resources available to everyone which are proven effective?

I welcome your thoughts.

John Stuppy, john@tutorvista.com