Community Successes

Editor's Note: This information appears on the Gwinnett County Public Schools Web site at http://www.gwinnett.k12.ga.us/gcps-mainweb01.nsf/pages/Live_Homework_Help.

Online Tutoring Aids Gwinnett Students

Gwinnett students in grades four through 12 have a personal online tutor as close as their home computer or the Gwinnett County Public Library, thanks to Live Homework Help. The service is free, easy to use, and available to students when they need homework help the most — between 4 and 11 p.m., Sunday through Thursday.

The online tutors — teachers, college professors, and graduate students — undergo a background check and extensive training before they are certified by Tutor.com, the nation's largest online tutoring service and provider of Live Homework Help. Tutors specialize in mathematics, language arts, social studies, or science.

Here's how it works:

• From home, the student logs onto the library Web site — www.gwinnettpl.org — clicks on the "Live Homework Help?" icon; then enters his library card and personal I.D. number. (Students using a computer at one of the library's 11 branches simply click on the icon on the main screen. No card or I.D. required.)
  
  
• First-time users at home are prompted to download software, an easy process.
  
  
• The student selects the subject and grade level. Then it takes just a minute or so to connect with a tutor.
  
  
• The average session lasts about 15 to 20 minutes but a tutor will stay online until the student understands the concepts. In the electronic sessions, participants use an interactive "white board" where they can draw a graph, work through a mathematical equation, or diagram a sentence. Tutor and student communicate via a chat function.

Live Homework Help is funded by a grant secured by Gwinnett County Public Schools and Gwinnett County Public Library.

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