Online Tutoring and Observing

The discussion about online tutoring yesterday was interesting. I heard some really good points being made about the potential benefits of it. In my Comm class, we recently talked about computer mediated communication and how some people just completely come out of their shells when they're online; so for them, online tutoring would be great. Like I had mentioned, though, for those of us who aren't too computer savvy and who prefer personal interaction, online tutoring isn't much of a substitute for face-to-face sessions.

Humorously, after observing one of Taylor's traditional sessions yesterday, the opportunity arose to observe her do an online tutoring session. She wasn't too familiar with how to get it going, so Cara helped set it up and then had to go. Taylor chatted to the girl and got the information needed on the yellow half-sheet and then uploaded her paper to the screen. However, once she got the paper uploaded, whenever she typed, the text would appear on the paper instead of in the IM box. We tried and tried but couldn't figure it out. I volunteered to communicate with the student via IM on the main computer while Taylor read the paper and made comments. This would have been quite an interesting session, but we found that it didn't work! Either the student couldn't receive our messages, or we couldn't receive hers; it was just a weird situation. After trying to make contact with her for 15 minutes, I left. I don't know if Taylor was able to get the session going again or not. Because of these technological difficulties and my personal preferences about tutoring, I think that I prefer face-to-face tutoring for now.