TutorChatLive.org

Description

TutorChatLive's intention is to help students understand and succeed with schoolwork by bringing free, unlimited live tutoring to students around the globe via a user-friendly website, www.tutorchatlive.org. The main feature of our site is our customized live chat program. A user finds a tutor by logging into our site and selecting "Tutor Search." The user then selects the subject area he/she needs help with, provided that there are tutors online for that subject. Then, the tutor, sitting at his/her computer, receives a chat initiation request from the user. Once the tutor accepts the request, both the user and the tutor can communicate. We encourage tutors to simultaneously help a variety of users. Tutors helping a lesser number of users receive incoming chat requests before the busier tutors. Tutors also have the abilities to share links for further research, upload diagrams, images, or files onto the chat window, and push web pages onto the user's computer (tutors can open a link onto a user's computer from their own computer). Tutors can also insert canned messages onto the chat. These are templates that tutors use for commonly addressing users, such as "Greetings! How may I help you," and "Please hold while I research your question. Additionally, tutors have the option of transferring chats to other available tutors (should they need additional help explaining), initiate chats with other tutors, or join another tutor's chat session. At the end of a chat session, users can e-mail themselves a copy of the chat transcript and rate and write a review of the tutor's service. For administrative and quality control purposes, all chat sessions are databased as transcripts for administrative review.