CEOTutor

Future of Teacher Support and PD

2011-09-11T11:49:00.003-04:00

Great commentary by Alvin Crawford of KDSI on the future of professional development and support for K12 teachers, , in Education Week at http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/09/09/03crawford.h31.html?r=542833189 . Full text below...

Published Online: September 9, 2011
Education Week Commentary
Bringing Professional Development Into the 21st Century
By Alvin H. Crawford

Our school systems are broken, but everyone seems to have his or her favorite villain rather than a strategic approach to producing positive student outcomes. Unions, teachers, districts, parents, politics, school choice, and competition all play a role, but the blame game doesn’t address the core problem. Here’s the reality: If we fix public education, every child will have an opportunity to break the cycle of poverty, and the United States will have an opportunity to play a role in the global knowledge economy. The challenge is determining the real source of the problem and providing a solution that works for every school in the nation. And those are no small tasks.

Research suggests the problems lie not with the students but with the adults. Teacher-performance research clearly illustrates we have a teaching problem in school districts. It suggests the quality of a classroom teacher is the single most important element in a child’s success. Given such data, one might conclude there are more suboptimal teachers than great ones. But let’s not immediately point fingers at teachers. Arguably, most enter the profession hoping to have an impact on children, yet a third leave after three years, and 50 percent after five years. The heart of the problem is that there are too many poorly trained administrators, principals, and teachers. In most industries, people are considered the most important asset, and corporate leaders ensure they are trained to do their jobs effectively. Public schools should be no different.

However, most foundations and policymakers have focused on accountability and evaluation rather than training. The assumption: If we measure teachers more effectively, we can get rid of the bad ones. The problem is too deep and systemic, though. In short, we cannot fire or hire our way out of this problem. The statistics suggest that if we develop a support system for principals and teachers to train them effectively, we will change education culture, retain new educators more effectively, enhance the performance of existing staff members, and identify those who, despite effective training, can’t meet standards and should pursue other careers.

According to several studies, school districts spend more than $10,000 on teacher professional development per teacher, per year. The number is startling and, in most cases, represents an amount far greater than any district budgets or believes it spends. In most instances, staff development is funded through a combination of federal funds (Titles I, II, III, and IV, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), several district-level departmental budgets (curriculum and instruction, accountability, professional development, and human resources), and school-level budgets. In most instances, no centralized accounting exists for those dollars, either in how they’re spent or their overall impact.

"In most industries, people are considered the most important asset, and corporate leaders ensure they are trained to do their jobs effectively. Public schools should be no different."
But the body of research reveals that staff-development costs, including central-office and local staff, hours of teacher time, stipends, salary increases, substitutes, facilities, instructors, and material expenditures hover in the range of $8,000 to $16,000 per teacher, per year, especially in larger districts. Most districts have no idea they spend that much on staff development. Sadly though, most administrators agree their professional-development outlay has no correlation with student-achievement results.

The $10,000-per-teacher cost could be justified if a significant change in teacher practice or student achievement were the result. But most professional development today lacks alignment to student-achievement needs, fidelity of implementation, and scale or reach. Professional-development days are historically spread throughout the year and delivered by internal resources through one-day trainings with little or no follow-up. In most cases, the inch-deep and train-the-trainer approaches to professional development won’t transform practice.

Scaling effective practice is also a significant issue. Most training takes place outside the classroom, an arrangement that requires coordination of days, substitutes, trainers, and facilities. This means many initiatives take six to eight years to reach all teachers in a given school or district, creating isolated pockets of knowledge but no systemic change in overall teacher practice. Research should dictate the model and methods for training all employees, but curiously, over 15 years ago, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, or CPRE, wrote a report on professional development that largely echoes the same problems we have today: lack of alignment, fidelity, and scale.

There is a “paucity” of solid research on the impact of professional development on student achievement, the U.S. Department of Education has found. In reviewing 1,300 studies on the subject, the department found that only nine of them met What Works Clearinghouse standards for research. However, the nine studies agreed that “teachers who receive substantial professional development” can raise student achievement “by about 21 percentile points.” A report by the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education concluded that to be effective, professional development must be focused, engaging, intensive, linked to student learning, supported with coaching, and integrated with other school initiatives, and continuous for “an average of about 50 hours or more on a given topic.”

Given the challenges and the evidence, how do we deliver effective professional development to teachers in a way that aligns to strategic objectives, provides the fidelity and rigor required to change instructional practice, and offers the scale required to address the needs of more than 50 million students?

The only effective way to scale professional development is to leverage online learning. Online professional development can deliver dozens of hours to teachers within eight weeks and includes collaborative learning environments supported effectively by coaching, modeling, mentoring, observation, and feedback. Online professional development works because it reduces travel costs and coordination, minimizes time out of the classroom, and allows educators to learn at their own pace. In fact, research suggests that online learning happens faster than face-to-face learning, with increased retention of the material.

Online professional development engages educators in high-quality learning by adhering to best practices in adult learning. It promotes differentiated coursework while enabling teachers to engage collaboratively with colleagues who share their learning needs. By delivering effective, differentiated online professional development, districts leverage the powerful advantages of technology and the online-learning environment. Districts delivering online professional development realize cost savings, scale critical instructional practices, differentiate teacher learning, advance strategic human-capital management, maintain intentional fidelity, and transform teaching.

Building educator capacity this way allows districts to focus on fixing the problems, immediately. Imagine if a district could effectively train 5,000 teachers in the common-core curriculum, differentiated instruction, cultural competency, effective teaching, instruction of English-language learners, formative assessment, and highly engaging classroom practice. Those courses could be delivered in less than six months to all teachers by the nation’s leading practitioners, with research-proven practice.

Imagine the dialogue. Imagine the engagement when principals, teachers, and coaches go about their work. There would be a common language and culture focused on addressing the problems. There would be a support system to help transform learning into practice. There would be a way to evaluate whether teachers who receive training and face-to-face support can meet the demands of rigorous instruction through end-of-year evaluations. And there would be transformational improvement in the ability of teachers to meet the needs of their students.
It’s time to take action and invest in developing our educators to meet the needs of 21st-century students by becoming 21st-century teachers. We can solve this problem by focusing our efforts, our investments, and our school districts on building capacity through online professional development.

MyLivePD Launches -- On Demand Help for Teachers

2011-09-07T10:25:00.012-04:00

Less than a year ago, I wrote about a $1.8MM grant that Tutor.com received from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a new service for teachers: http://ceotutor.blogspot.com/2010/11/gates-foundation-awards-grant-to.html.

Vision: Make it possible for a teacher to get help the minute it's needed, from an experienced coach who can provide a helpful resource, help with content or instructional approaches, or classroom dynamics coaching. No reservations or appointments ever needed, and always live and one-to-one. On the teacher's schedule, as often as needed, in a confidential safe zone. What Tutor.com has provided to almost 7 million students over the past 10 years, now enhanced and adapted for teachers.

Today, we announced the launch of MyLivePD, the service created as a result of that grant. You can read more about the project at the press release sent out today: http://www.tutor.com/press/press-releases-2011/20110907. You can also visit http://www.mylivepd.com/ to watch a demo video or to get on our email list.

During this pilot project, we're partnering with 3 school districts (Hillsborough County, Baltimore County, and Tucson Unified) and 4 Teach for America regions, as well as several resource providers that are mentioned in the press release.

The pilot will be evaluated by a third-party researcher contracted by the Gates Foundation, and Tutor.com does plan to offer the service to other school districts and charter schools in the coming months.

We are very excited to be working with teachers, providing the support teachers need to deliver great lessons every day. Contact me if you have any questions or suggestions,

George Cigale
gcigale@tutor.com

Johns Hopkins University SOE Opinion Piece: Student Feedback

2011-05-23T10:19:00.011-04:00

Several years ago I started writing this blog with the goal of sharing news about Tutor.com and ideas that may help other entrepreneurs. It’s been a fun and productive experience for me to spend time writing here and sharing the lessons I’ve learned as a leader of a small company in an emerging market.

Over the last year, I’ve been spending more of my time deeply engaged in how Tutor.com is helping reform education by doing something very simple – listening to students and acting on their feedback. Much of this thinking has been shared in private meetings, at invitation-only events and among my staff.

Some of those ideas come to life this week in an opinion piece I was invited to write by Dean David Andrews of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education (SOE). I am the Chair of SOE’s National Advisory Council and I am incredibly impressed with Dean Andrews and his vision for educating the educators. I’m excited to work with the Dean on his agenda of real change for our future teachers.

I’m also planning some of my own changes by giving this blog a new direction and new look over the summer. I’ll begin sharing the thoughts that I merely touch upon in the SOE opinion piece around the hallmarks of Tutor.com’s approach to learning and teaching. Future blog posts will go deeper into issues such as:

· Incorporating student feedback into their own education
· Creating a student-teacher-administrator feedback loop that produces results
· Blended learning solutions that improve teacher productivity and student achievement
· Collecting, analyzing and using meaningful data in the classroom
· What students can tell us about learning

I hope you’ll continue on this journey with me and provide your feedback and thoughts as I explore these issues that are driving the direction of Tutor.com and education reform.

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Also posting at http://blog.tutor.com/

Gates Foundation Awards Grant to Tutor.com

2010-12-07T09:00:00.003-05:00

Very exciting news and a new kind of project for us...

This week, we’re announcing that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded a grant directly to Tutor.com to develop and launch a new on-demand professional development service for teachers.

We’ll be working closely with a small number of schools where math teachers will connect to online teaching coaches for immediate on-demand help using newly developed software based on the Tutor.com platform. Our goal, shared by the Gates Foundation, is to provide motivated teachers with new ways get help when they need it, so they can be ready to teach an effective high quality lesson the next day. Really exciting stuff!

We'd like to hear from teaching coaches who are interested in working for us, and from school and district leaders who would like their schools considered as candidates for participation in the Gates project. You can sign up for updates and learn more about this project at http://www.tutor.com/ondemandpd and from the press release.

We're also hiring a project manager -- please spread the word.

George

gcigale@tutor.com

*Photo from November visit of Philadelphia's Mastery Charter School, a Gates Foundation grantee.

West Point Visit

2010-09-10T14:13:00.003-04:00

Please visit the Tutor.com Blog, which is where I posted about my recent visit to the West Point Middle School to speak with parents and students about their free online tutoring service.

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Poets House Bridge Walk

2010-06-17T14:55:00.003-04:00

Follow this link to the Tutor.com Blog, which is where you can find this post about the Poets House Bridge Walk, and where I'll be posting most of the time.

George Cigale
gcigale@tutor.com

How to Deliver High Quality Education

2010-06-07T15:30:00.009-04:00

Last weekend, I gave a brief presentation at the National Advisory Council meeting of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. I posted some thoughts about it at the Tutor.com blog:

http://blog.tutor.com/2010/06/how-to-deliver-high-quality-education/

Thanks for reading,

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Guest Blogging for the USO

2010-06-04T17:02:00.003-04:00

Guest blogging today on the USO's blog and also pasted below...

Hi! I’m George Cigale, CEO and founder of Tutor.com. I’m guest blogging today at the USO to let you know about Tutor.com for Military Families, a program provided by the Department of Defense that provides one-to-one live online tutoring and career help for military families at no charge.

We understand the issues that military families face—the stress of deployments, children transferring schools mid-year, and needing help getting up to speed with local curriculum—and we are proud to support military families with 24/7 immediate access to homework help and career help that can relieve some of the stress.

And, as a working dad of three school-age children, including one who is studying Algebra this year, I know how tough it is to juggle conflicting family schedules and making sure homework gets done! It’s so important for students to have access to help when they need it, so they can get their homework done and feel confident about their progress.

Tutor.com helps the whole military family in two important ways:

Tutor.com offers K-12 and college academic help. Students connect to tutors for help with homework, projects, quizzes and essays in more than 20 subjects. Our college experts are great for military service members and spouses who are continuing their education, and because we are available 24/7, we fit into busy, hectic schedules.

Tutor.com helps service members and spouses seeking jobs and entering career transition. We have career experts who assist with everything from crafting cover letters to help pulling together a resume. We are experts in translating your valuable volunteer and service experience into the perfect resume for a competitive civilian workforce.

Every time you connect to one of our tutors or career experts, you get one-to-one attention. We’re there for you when you need us, 24/7, conveniently accessible from your home computer, and, we’re open all summer.

Active duty Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy service members and their spouses and children can access the program. Go to www.tutor.com/military for more information and to get a tutor.

ADE's Digital Empowerment Summit

2010-04-28T13:43:00.005-04:00

I’ve been off my blogging game for the last couple of months. Incredibly busy, but that’s not a good enough excuse. As I return with some thoughts about an event I spoke at last week, I posted on Tutor.com’s blog first -- http://blog.tutor.com/2010/04/tutor-com-at-ades-digital-empowerment-summit/ . You may see more posts from me there instead of here, but I've pasted it here below as well…

As a young man, Julius Hollis experienced the power of access to education and tutoring. Mr. Hollis went on to become a highly successful banker and entrepreneur, and is now committing his valuable time and money to building the Alliance for Digital Equality, non-profit organization that helps bring the full power of information and education to underserved communities.
Last week, I joined ADE’s Digital Empowerment Summit as a panelist, in Newark, NJ. A thoroughly motivating day, we heard compelling appeals from current and former Mayors, business people, educators, and activists, that much more must be done to make the power of broadband more available and usable in urban communities.

Newark’s Mayor Cory Booker kicked off the summit with the story of Newark’s revival. He was followed by speeches and panel discussions featuring Shirley Franklin (a two-term Atlanta Mayor and now Senior Advisor for ADE), Manny Diaz (two terms as Miami Mayor, President of the US Conference of Mayors, and now Vice Chair of ADE), and Mignon Clyburn (Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission) among others.

The panel on which I participated was focused on wireless broadband access and its impact on education, health care, and public safety issues. Masterfully moderated by Mario Armstrong, who appears regularly on CNN and NPR as a technology expert and reporter. I made sure that the Newark and online audience (the event was broadcast live on ADE’s web site) was aware of HomeworkHelpNJ , which is a service underwritten by PSEG and Praxair, and provided by Tutor.com in partnership with the New Jersey State Library. HomeworkHelpNJ provides all students in Newark and over a dozen NJ communities with live one-to-one academic help seven days a week.

ADE’s mission to provide increased access to broadband services and infrastructure in urban underserved communities is a critical step in improving quality of life and career opportunities. Another necessary piece is the communication and training efforts that ensure that families, students, job seekers, entrepreneurs, and other members of the community are aware of and have the skills needed to take advantage of services like HomeworkHelpNJ.

Mr. Hollis’ work to create ADE’s Learning Without Walls initiative and Digital Empowerment Councils in major cities across the US is having a dramatic effect on youth and families, and we are proud to be active partners and supporters of ADE’s mission.

George Cigale, CEO and Founder, Tutor.com
gcigale@tutor.com

Online Tutoring for Military Families

2010-01-26T08:33:00.015-05:00

Finally, I can talk/write about this openly. Not exactly military top secret information, but our 24/7 online tutoring service for military families went totally public today with a press release from the Department of Defense's Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Here it is in full: http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=57732

After serving over 10,000 military family students with live, one-to-one tutoring at no charge to the student or family through our US Army and USMC programs over the past year, the Department of Defense decided to launch and expand the service for all service members and their families. We went live on January 1, 2010 at http://www.tutor.com/military.

This means that "Military service members and their dependents around the world can work with a certified, professional tutor online 24/7 to get help with homework, studying, test prep, resume writing, and more, the minute they need it, thanks to a Department of Defense (DoD) funded contract with Tutor.com. Students of any age, from kindergartners to high school seniors, as well as adult learners, may use the service to connect to an expert tutor for one-to-one help in math, science, social studies and English, as well as assistance with resume writing and interview preparation."

Here's a sample of the amazing post-session session survey comments written by military students: “This is great help for me and my brother because our dad is away and cannot help us with our homework. This helps A LOT! Thank you!!,” wrote a Fort Hood Army student.

Only one hitch: students can't benefit from this great service if they don't know about it. So, please help spread the word by visiting http://www.tutor.com/military-programs/spread-the-word and http://www.facebook.com/TutordotcomForMilitary.

There will be some good press coming out, like this article, which will also help the cause: http://www.military.com/news/article/navy-news/free-online-tutoring-for-servicemembers.html?col=1186032311124

Please contact me directly if you have any suggestions or contacts that could help help us spread the word.

George Cigale

gcigale@tutor.com

5 Million Served, and a couple requests

2009-12-09T07:35:00.003-05:00

Last night, we served our 5 MILLIONTH student with live, on-demand, one-to-one help. We put up a real-time counter at www.tutor.com a couple years ago, which also shows actual sessions that are happening, and we celebrated the odometer clicking past 5,000,000 yesterday as a 6th grader in an Army family connected for math help. To put into perspective the number of students our tutors have helped, we launched this fun page: http://www.tutor.com/5million, and a press release going out today: http://www.tutor.com/press/press-releases-2009/20091208.

Special thanks to the thousands of public libraries, schools, after school organization, corporations, and military and government agencies that placed their trust in us over the past ten years to serve their communities of students and families.

And now, the requests:

1) To help us reach our next 5 million (actually, we're pretty ambitious, so let's say 50 million) students, we'r hiring a National Sales Director, K12 Schools. A description of the job opening can be found at
http://www.tutor.com/careers/corporate/national-sales-director-k12. Please share with the talented sales people you know, and I welcome any help introducing us to innovative school leaders who want to bring online tutoring to their community.

2) Our programs with the Army and Marines allow military personnel and their families to connect to a live tutor for FREE 24/7 help on a wide array of subjects. Adults and children get immediate, one-to-one help from a background checked subject expert online. We've served thousands of students, and in the past few weeks signed an expansion of the program with the Department of Defense to serve all family members in all military services. More info at http://www.tutor.com/military-programs. Please feel free to forward to everyone you know affiliated with the US military, as spreading the word is our top priority.

Thank you for your help, and please contact me if you have any questions or suggestions,

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Education Reform Allies

2009-12-08T07:13:00.006-05:00

I spent most of yesterday at a conference put on by the American Enterprise Institute (http://www.aei.org/), a preeminent conservative think tank. The theme of the conference was "More Than Just Schools: Rethinking the Demand for Educational Entrepreneurship". You can find the impressive roster of speakers, with bios, as well as the research papers discussed during the day at http://www.aei.org/event/100146. Great day of thinking, sharing, and imagining how to get to an educational system that works for its customers -- children and parents.

During the conference, and at the informal reception and dinner, I had a chance to chat with Rick Hess (http://www.aei.org/scholar/30), who runs AEI's Education group and has authored books with titles like "Common Sense School Reform", and Joe Williams (http://www.dfer.org/list/about/staff/), who runs Democrats for Education Reform (http://www.dfer.org/) and has written "Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education".

The common ground between Rick and Joe, AEI and DFER, is substantive and real, may be surprising to some, and very refreshing to me. They even share a similar look and smile in their bio pictures, above.

DFER may not represent the mainstream or power base of the Democratic Party, but it is gaining influence and has much in common with the views on school reform held by Secretary Duncan and his team.

From DFER's statement of principles: "We support leaders in our party who have the courage to challenge a failing status quo and who believe that the severity of our nation's educational crisis demands that we tackle this problem using every possible tool at our disposal.
We believe that reforming broken public school systems cannot be accomplished by tinkering at the margins, but rather through bold and revolutionary leadership. This requires opening up the traditional top-down monopoly of most school systems and empowering all parents to access great schools for their children."

If you share these principles, as I do, get involved and get active, with your voice and with your dollars.

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Whose Feedback Matters?

2009-10-20T16:55:00.004-04:00

Simple question: why don't we ask the true customers of our K-12 educational system (the children) what they think about the education they're getting?

Does your teacher go at the right pace?
Do you think your teacher encourages you to ask questions?
Does your teacher explain what you're supposed to learn?

How would schools change if we asked these questions regularly?

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Safire's Language

2009-09-30T14:21:00.006-04:00

In homage to William Safire (1929-2009), who passed away last weekend:

I was 10 or 11 years old, and the Sunday Times was my consistently open window to the world's news and debates. Being too young during his Nixon years, I was first exposed to Safire through his weekly Sunday Magazine "On Language" column in the late '70s.

The word play and the attention to the fine details and idiosyncracies of language caught my attention and became a weekly dose of fun with words. His column was singularly responsible for sparking my interest in etymology and the process behind how meanings of words evolve beyond their derivations, through popular usage and circumstance.

Maureen Dowd does a very good job, in an uncharacteristically somber tone, in her Op-Ed column today -- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/opinion/30dowd.html, conveying her personal relationship with and respect for Safire. While I never had the opportunity to meet the man, and I disagreed more often than not with his political positions, I am thankful for the lasting impact he made on my appreciation of words and language. A quality and value I hope to pass along to my children, and to others, through writings and conversation.

George Cigale

gcigale@tutor.com

*picture by George Tames/The New York Times

Military benefits from Tutor.com

2009-09-17T22:19:00.008-04:00

I am very happy to share the news that Tutor.com recently signed a major contract with the US Army, following on the footsteps of an initial program with the US Marine Corps. Please feel free to forward this to your US Military friends and colleagues.

Our programs with the Army and Marines allow military personnel and their families to connect to a live tutor for 24/7 help on a wide array of subjects. Adults and children get immediate, one-to-one help from a background checked subject expert online.

We have already served thousands of students in the military (of the nearly 5 million students we've served overall), and the student feedback and results are great. I am writing to ask for your help to spread the word about the availability of help, as students are returning back to school.

You can send this to military personnel or family members you know. And include the details below:

The Army program: http:/www.myarmyonesource.com/cyss_tutor. Eligible for the program are dependents of enlisted Army, Active Duty Army National Guard, Army Reserves, including Wounded Warrior/Survivor, and Army Civilians.

The Marine Corps program: http:/www.usmc-mccs.org/ (click the Tutor.com icon on the home page). Eligible for the program are dependents of Marines and Marine Civilians.

Thanks for your help, and if you happen to have close military ties and have any advice for us on how to spread the word further, please get in touch with me directly: gcigale@tutor.com.

George Cigale

Hacked blog!?!

2009-09-17T19:51:00.002-04:00

Well, that's a first for me. My blogger account was somehow hacked tonight, allowing someone to get at least three annoying and profane posts onto my blog. They're deleted, but if you subscribe to the CEOTutor blog through a feed, my apologies for the spam posts getting into your feed reader. Please ignore them.

Thanks, to everyone who sent me heads up emails this evening letting me know about the weird posts. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming,

George Cigale
gcigale@tutor.com

Service Cuts Hurt Real Children

2009-08-26T07:36:00.009-04:00

As a business, Tutor.com's health is dependent on keeping a high percentage of our institutional customers (libraries, schools, educational organizations, companies) renewing their homework help and online tutoring programs year after year. Some years are tougher than others, but even in this year's harshest economic conditions of our lifetimes, 9 out of 10 customers have decided to renew and continue their programs.

In the face of severe budget cuts at schools and libraries, something valuable often has to go, and many of these decisions were not easy. In some cases, the Tutor.com program did not make the cut. One such case, with a library system in Stockton, CA, children (and some parents) who use their online tutoring program regularly, were given the chance to share their thoughts about the service cut.

As a business, we hate to lose even one customer. As a group of people who come to work empowered by the help our tutors provide to thousands of kids each day, seeing the effect of budget cuts on real kids is gut-wrenching. So, instead of keeping these feelings to ourselves, I thought I'd share the pain a bit. Here is a small sample of the thoughts from the last couple weeks, un-edited, from Stockton:

*****

-- "when i need help this is where i understand the most"

-- "I think tutor.com service is excellent web because it allows me to help my children with their daily homework. Please keep it on. Reopen it. Thank you"

-- "I say that they should not shut this program.. this program has helped me a lot to understand my homework. I need help right know and i would not be able to get it.... but i support this program and it think they should keep it... it will make people get better grades..."

-- "It has been an absolutely wonderful service for help, especially for students in need of desperate guidance while struggling in schoolwork. I myself can testify to that, as there have been many times in which I would be stuck on a math problem or an essay question and have minor headaches as a result. The tutors are indeed intelligent and kind as well, never failing to attempt assisting our homework-conquering. :) I am so grateful for this service; I would be grieved, yes, GRIEVED if the program is no longer open."

-- "i think my library should keep Tutor.com is because what would happen if students have no clue at all and they end up failing their homework or tests just because thier parents and Tutor.com wasn't available to help them on thier homework. kids will be devestated!!!!!!!! teachers will blame them for not knowing how to do thier homework. i'v been using this website (Tutor.com) for about 2 whole years and it has helped me ever sense. please please keep this webstie."

-- "PLease please please please with a chairry on top help keep it open because they have always been helpful to me and my brother with homework and projects, so much more like quizzes and test studying. I was mad with myself for leaving hw blank with a ? mark because i dind't get it. But tutors put a bandaid on my many troubles and were so cool. Please and thank you!!!"

*****

We know that the economy will recover in due time, and most of the services that were cut will return, but in the meantime (and the meantime can be years), the pain is measured in many real children who are being denied the academic help and support they need to succeed in school.

If you, your organization, or someone you know, is in a position to underwrite the cost of these tutoring programs that public libraries and other educational organizations provide, please get in touch with me.

Only somewhat related to the post above: So I don't end on a completely depressing note, I thought I'd share this video created by WNYC's Radio Lab project (Moments by Will Hoffman) -- it's worth the couple minutes to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNVPalNZD_I.

Thanks for taking the time to read,

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Learning Suite Launched

2009-07-08T13:06:00.005-04:00

We launched something big today. But you probably can't see it. Usually, I tell the world through this blog and provide direct links, when we've planned something for months, put tons of energy and hard work behind it and get it done really well, a week ahead of schedule.

I don't mean to be coy, as this really is a big deal for Tutor.com. But there's much more to Tutor.com than what you are able see at http://www.tutor.com/.

The www is the place where all students and families can trial and purchase our online tutoring services directly, but we also have a network of over 500 sites that we run under contract for public libraries, public and private schools, universities, corporations, and government agencies. We create co-branded online tutoring sites for these institutions, we provide the online learning technology and resources, and the one-to-one live tutors, and the institutions pay us an annual fee for the software and services.

Those software and services saw a major upgrade launch today, and it went extremely smoothly. While you can't see it unless you're one of the thousands of students being served by our client institutions each day, you can see a description of it at http://www.tutor.com/libraries-education/products/k12-center.

The new Tutor.com Learning Suite includes the K-12 Student Center, the College Center, and the Adult Career Center. So much that's new that you can read about at the link above, including resume review and job search help, thousands of vetted and reviewed web resources full of tutorials and other instructional content for all ages and wide array of subjects, a unique proofreading service we've dubbed ProofPoint, and a major upgrade of our online classroom technology that uses Microsoft's Silverlight (really cool collaboration, drawing, and graphic tools).

This was a long and inspiring process of listening to our customers and pulling our team together to deliver more to our institutional customers so they can serve their customers better, even when budgets are tight.

Great job, team! Looking forward to the feedback from our student users and our institution clients,

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Call from our doctor, just to check on us

2009-06-11T20:47:00.006-04:00

We like our dog (Suey), and our cat, but we are not "dog people", and this is not really a post about our dog.

In the past couple weeks though, we had the experience of our dog getting sick, going to her doctor, getting diagnosed with a treatable condition, getting treated with antibiotics, having an unexpected negative reaction to the medicine, and getting follow up treatment and advice.

The reason I'm bothering to write about this experience is that at several points along the way, my wife and I realized that the level of care and attention Suey (pictured on the left, reading a book) was getting was eerily better than the level of care the humans in our family get from our medical providers, in just about every way.

The cherry on top was the call I got this morning from Dr. Horowitz's assistant, Nancy, who called us, unsolicited, to check in on how our dog was doing 2 days after we took her off the antibiotics as the doctor suggested. I was in shock -- she was calling to check in to make sure Suey was fine. I asked a couple questions, she didn't know the definite answer, so she put the doctor on the phone to explain what the symptoms would look like if the antibiotics hadn't completely worked. The whole exchange took less than 5 minutes, and left me thinking again that this is how we should feel when we take our kids to the pediatrician about our problem.

I actually like our pediatrician, and my primary care physician, but can you remember the last time your doctor called you to check in on your health after a visit to his/her office? I don't, because it has never happened.

And to be clear, it wasn't just one call from the vet that impressed me, it was a recurring pattern of interest, concern, follow up, and willingness to engage with us to find a solution. Very different from what we've grown to expect from human medical care. And this isn't a small veterinary practice for pampered pooches -- they run a kennel, and have hundreds if not thousands of pets they serve, and their rates are not outrageous.

As our President embarks on a mission (with an appearance in Wisconsin yesterday) to overhaul our medical system, I hope someone asks that question -- how can we reach a level of satisfaction from our human medical providers that we get from our pet providers?

I'm not a health and medical policy wonk like I am about education policy, but I'm betting part of the answer is in the insurance system. No health insurance for pets, and lots of alternative providers creates consumer who make smart healthy choices and good competition between providers, who strive to serve their customers well.

Universal insurance coverage would be a great and fair next step to bring needed healthcare to so many poor and unemployed uninsured people. But to really fix our deep-rooted health and medical problems, we need to go beyond, and it should be part of the big-picture health discussion -- we need to create incentives and systems to get most of the US population making wiser food choices and becoming more active (just like we made it less likely someone will smoke themselves to death over the past 15 years).

Skyrocketing diabetes and obesity rates (childhood and adult) don't happen by accident -- it happens because it's easier and cheaper to buy soda and eat fatty sugary foods than not. Reversing the trend will be difficult, but is totally possible if there is the political will to regulate smartly and build in the right incentives for food/drink producers.

That's the only way we'll reach the goal of having affordable health care for all, and the benefits of achieving that (financial and quality of life) are huge.

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Nano radio, not iPod Nano, Really Nano

2009-04-27T16:12:00.010-04:00

This post has little to do with Tutor.com directly, but if you get excited by cool science, you'll want to read more. Maybe I'll find some connection to my day job as I finish writing.

It takes me a few weeks to get through the entire Scientific American magazine, and I'm a month behind, but what's exciting me for the past week, as my kids will attest from several conversations and demonstrations online, is an article on page 40 in the March issue, "The World's Smallest Radio". You can also find it online at http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-worlds-smallest-radio.

I'm no science writer, but Ed Regis does a great job for Scientific American, of explaining how Alex Zettl and his colleagues at UC Berkeley elegantly created a fully functioning radio that is the size of a typical virus. A virus! 200 nanometers long and 10 nanometers wide -- about 10,000 times thinner than the width of a human hair. (note, 1 nanometer = one millionth of a millimeter!)

OK, you get it, really really small. This one nanotube performs all the functions of a radio -- antenna, tuner, amplifier, and demodulator, all in one, from a substance that is essentially very small particles left behind when you rub a pencil's graphite on a hard surface. The even more amazing part of this applied science experiment is that Zettl's team videotaped it using an extremely powerful microscope. If you're a science and Clapton fan, you'll really enjoy watching the first nano radio playing Layla. Zettl's site includes the full playback for the actual radio experiment, video and audio: http://www.physics.berkeley.edu/research/zettl/projects/nanoradio/radio.html.

This is probably old news for the nano science community (experiments in 2007), but that's not my audience, and SciAm just published this last month.

The applications for this are limitless. Imagine tumor cells being able to automatically transmit data about themselves to nano devices that are delivering chemo treatment just to those particular cells, equipped with their own nano radios.

Ah, I've got it, the connection to Tutor.com: maybe, just maybe, one of the thousands of physics students we help each week is getting stuck on an AP Physics problem tonight. She's getting frustrated and about to give up, but remembers that she can connect to a physics tutor at Tutor.com for immediate help. She gets the help, pursues a career in nano medicine, and figures out how to use nano radios to deliver cancer therapies directly to a tumor, without causing damage to any other organs. One can dream. And we should...

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Tutor.com's New Partner and Investor

2009-03-17T07:52:00.007-04:00

Getting any kind of investment deal done these days is a lot harder than it used to be, in this risk-averse climate.

Getting one done that brings in growth capital for Tutor.com and a great partner that will help us expand into new markets and internationally, feels really good.

The company making a strategic investment in Tutor.com is Sodexo. Based in Paris, they do over $20 Billion in revenues annually, operate in 80 countries, and employ over 350,000 people. You can learn plenty about our new partner at http://www.sodexo.com/.

The investment amount is not disclosed, but I can say that it is a minority stake, not a controlling one, and that Sodexo will be a very active investor. My cautious business environment outlook, however, does not change (see previous post - http://tinyurl.com/c28a28), and we will remain extremely frugal.

This investment will help Tutor.com deliver on our promises to libraries, schools, corporations, and our student customers, even through the rainy days of the economic downturn. Students of all ages need us even more in these tough economic times, as many seek help with their job search and re-training to qualify for new jobs. This will allow us to continue to invest in product and service innovations, such as the release of our Adult Learning Center and Student Learning Center products this summer.

The deal was closed earlier this month, and now the hard work begins again -- so many opportunities and so many new ideas. Off to the races,

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Permission Slip and Creative Students

2009-02-27T10:39:00.009-05:00

Below is an actual Tutor.com session between a student and tutor that occured recently. We provide one-to-one help to about 6,000-7,000 students each school night, and we're used to a few students every day trying to get our tutors to do the work for them.

The interesting thing about this one, is how much effort the student went through to convince the tutor that it was OK for the tutor to provide all the answers.

If you can't see the image of the permission slip on the left that the student created and shared as an attachment with the tutor, it reads: "Dear Tutor.com Tutors: Please allow this student to conduct an interview about Stalin. We have granted this student permission to do so. You may answer questions the student has regarding Stalin. Thanks for your cooperation. Sincerely, Tutor.com Team". He/she even did some design work, putting the Tutor.com logo at the end, to make it appear authentic.

Nice try, kid, and wonderfully handled, Norma the tutor. Hopefully next time the student will put his/her creativity into productive work for good, and not evil...

[00:00:00] Automated System Message: *** Please note: All sessions are recorded for quality control. ***
[00:00:00] (Customer): hey
[00:00:18] Norma M (Tutor): Hi Welcome to tutor.com
[00:00:42] Norma M (Tutor): Is this your first time using our service?
[00:01:02] (Customer): my school has contacted tutor.com to ask if i can conduct an interview with tutor.com tutors regarding stalin. tutor.com gave me permission. i have a list of question i need to ask
[00:01:31] (Customer): File Shared > tutor.com letter.docx
[00:01:40] Norma M (Tutor): Ok. To to be clear...
[00:01:37] (Customer): here is a letter from tutor.com
[00:01:47] (Customer): that gives me permission to conduct the interview
[00:02:14] Norma M (Tutor): So, this is not homework help?
[00:02:21] (Customer): yea it is[00:02:27] Guest (Customer): it is regarding Stalin.
[00:02:41] (Customer): can i send you the list of questions so you can answer them?
[00:03:15] Norma M (Tutor): Your assignment is on Stalin...and What are the instructions from your teacher?
[00:03:31] Norma M (Tutor): What exactly would you need help with ?
[00:04:01] (Customer): the directions are to conduct an interview with a tutor. i have to basically give you the list of questions and you take your time answering them and send them back to me
[00:04:15] (Customer): File Shared > Stalin Interview Questions tutors.doc
[00:04:23] (Customer): here are the list of questions
[00:04:29] (Customer): please let me know when you are done
[00:04:34] (Customer): and send them back to me
[00:06:47] (Customer): have you started?
[00:07:14] Norma M (Tutor): I opened both files shared
[00:07:17] Norma M (Tutor): however
[00:07:45] Norma M (Tutor): As a tutor with Tutor.com I am trained to help students arrive at the understanding of concepts
[00:07:54] Norma M (Tutor): and not to give out the answers..
[00:08:09] Norma M (Tutor): I will be glad to flag this session for review
[00:08:06] (Customer): you wont be giving answrs
[00:08:10] (Customer): this is a simple interview
[00:08:17] (Customer): i even have a letter
[00:08:31] Norma M (Tutor): and will not be able to just simple give you the anwers
[00:08:28] (Customer): and you will be my third tutor i interview
[00:08:41] (Customer): i already have the answres
[00:08:55] (Customer): i just need you to answer them to the best of your ability
[00:09:06] (Customer): can you do that?
[00:09:33] Norma M (Tutor): Our goal is to help you understand the concept so you can arrive at the right answers yourself. We can't give you the answers, but I can work with you to get there.

Reminds me of the old Welcome Back, Kotter show and Epstein's notes signed by “Epstein's Mom”, allowing him to do all kinds of crazy stuff. Those were some creative notes and permission slips.

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Crayon Physics for the Winter

2009-01-13T12:21:00.009-05:00

With temperatures in the teens this week (maybe even dropping to zero later in the week), a long weekend coming up, and three kids aged 7-12 looking for stuff to do through the winter when they're staying warm indoors, I get excited when I run into something fun and not mind-numbing.

I was listening to NPR last Friday (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99080116), and Melissa Block did an interview with Petri Purho, a 25-year old Finnish game designer. Petri single-handedly created a game called Crayon Physics (http://www.crayonphysics.com/), which started as a 2 week project and evolved into a year and a half software development effort to entertain and challenge, while teaching some of the basics of physics.

Petri's selling Crayon Physics on his site for $20, and it's well worth it. No disclaimer needed here -- I have never met or corresponded with Petri, nor does Tutor.com have a business relationship with him.

Just really good software that my 3 kids started on this weekend. After trying it out myself for about an hour and loving it, it took me 2 minutes to download and setup accounts for the kids, 10 seconds to get them started, and then they were off to the races solving physics problems for hours, with quick pauses for bathroom and food breaks. They mostly worked together, sometimes giving each other tips, laughing out loud every minute or two, and sharing learnings as they found better ways of solving each puzzle. I got involved occasionally, but mostly because it looked and sounded like fun and they wanted to show me achievements, instead of settling disputes or helping.

This is not your normal super graphic, violent, or competitive game. The first marketing bullet on Petri's site, says, "The Game Features Awesome Physics." But it is addictive in it's own educational way.

Lest you think it's parenting paradise here, these are the same kids who can spend hours playing Madden Football or MLB the Show on their PS3, learning absolutely nothing and being anti-social and cranky at the end of the day. Crayon Physics had the opposite effect -- stimulating, social, and left them thinking about the challenges long after the computer was turned off.

After finishing a bed-time book that Sunday night for my 10 and 7 year olds, we said good-night, and my 10 year old said, in the dark, "I just realized I can build a catapult to win this level". That was really good to hear, and I felt only slightly guilty to be spending the next 2 hours watching the season premiere of 24.

Looking forward to dozens of levels of physics fun through the cold winter,

George Cigale
gcigale@tutor.com

Managing through this Economic Downturn

2008-12-27T21:05:00.014-05:00

Ask just about any entrepreneurial leader, at any time, how things are going (at a new year's party, a lunch meeting, an industry conference), and you get the typical optimistic answer: "things are good, we're growing, great new stuff coming, exciting time for our company".

We are naturally trying to exude confidence in our business, trying to convey the necessary optimism that others find appealing and results in productive partnerships and helpful relationships. At normal times, some are being completely truthful and some are exaggerating at least a bit.

These are not, however, normal times. I have spoken to dozens of entrepreneurs and investors over the past year. Some saw it coming in early 2008 or earlier, some got nervous when the mortgage bubble started bursting, and some didn't see it coming until Lehman and Merrill collapsed in September. A month after the credit markets froze and equity markets dove, the prevailing view was that we were hitting bottom soon, and that we were in a typical cyclical downturn, like the brief recessions that came and went every decade or so. Those were painful recessions that wreaked havoc on many lives and businesses, but in my humble opinion, we are in the middle of something much more serious.

I could spend much time explaining why I believe this is a much graver downturn, citing labor, retail, monetary, consumer spending, and other evidence, but I'm not writing with the goal of convincing anyone that my crystal ball is more accurate. What I am writing about is what to do with that belief if you hold it (assuming your company doesn't provide foreclosure services, or some other industry that benefits from a major economic downturn)...

Anyone still saying “things are good, we're growing, great new stuff coming, exciting time for our company" and the story stays completely rosy as you dig deeper, is either still in denial or is not interested in a productive truthful conversation. As down as I am on just about every sector of the economy and how long it will take to recover, even with an aggressive stimulus spending package, I am optimistic about Tutor.com's future.

There are clear reasons for optimism, including our recent sales results, customer feedback, and new products launching. Realism, caution, and a healthy respect for the unknown after a year of many "this has never happened before" moments, however, trumps the optimism about my business. This means that doing my job well in these uncertain times has to include budgeting conservatively, cutting back on spending, focusing more on what works, listening to our customers even more carefully than before, and figuring out ways to offer our customers more even when we're cutting back.

In our business, our employees and our tutors are among our biggest assets, but since we have no factories producing materials or brick and mortar operations with big rent payments, our people also represent our biggest expenses. Cutting back on costs and budgeting conservatively for us primarily means employing fewer people and paying them (us) less, while asking everyone to work harder and smarter. These are tough decisions we began making months ago, and without revealing too much, I will say that my entire management team and I took significant voluntary compensation and benefits cuts to set the tone for our overall planning and budget decisions.

Leading is easy when times are good and dollars are flowing freely. In hard times, keeping your best people focused, motivated, and passionate, while asking them to sacrifice, is just plain hard but absolutely necessary.

Every leader's style is different. Mine is to be as open with key information as possible with our employees, to nurture an environment where tough questions are asked and doubts are expressed, and to avoid top-down decision making except when necessary. And if I have sufficiently earned the trust of our people and the belief in our overall company vision, we get a company where the key strategies are understood and bought-into by everyone who has the power to make us succeed.

So, at Tutor.com, things are good, we're growing, great new stuff coming, exciting time for our company. ;-). But the world around us is shaky and stormy, and I am going to make sure we keep our great people on the bus together, in the right seats, moving around as needed, driving smartly and creatively in the right direction, serving our customers as best as we can, and using every dollar wisely so that all of our stakeholders (students, families, customers, employees, tutors, partners, shareholders) benefit from a healthy and strong Tutor.com during this economic downturn and beyond.

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com

Joining a New Board of Directors -- SIIA

2008-11-20T11:11:00.010-05:00

Recently I got the great news that the members of the Software Information Industry Association (http://www.siia.net/) elected me to serve a two year term on the Education Board of Directors. The news actually arrived on election day, which turned into a wonderful day all around. Press release at http://tinyurl.com/5dv53z.

Of course, I am honored to join this group and help direct the association's important work. Ken Wasch, Karen Billings, and others have helped build SIIA into an influential trade association that helps its members be heard by policy makers and creates a forum for companies to exchange education technology ideas and information.

From lessons learned from sitting on two other non-profit Boards, the experience can be fruitful and worthwhile or it can be frustrating and unproductive -- all depends on the effort invested and the willingness to speak up with thoughtful and contrary ideas that sometimes challenge the status quo. Associations and non-profit Boards are, by their nature, risk-averse and often avoid innovation. My view, however, is that these are risky times, and that our educational systems and foundations need to be questioned and need to be overhauled.

If innovators do not speak up and call for major change and real investment into new ways of learning and teaching, we will be missing a big opportunity and we will continue to get mediocre results. So, my plan as I join this new Board, is to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can, and as I see opportunities for the association to influence education policy, I will speak up loudly for education innovation and investment.

George Cigale, gcigale@tutor.com