Thursday, September 6, 2012

Take a picture of your homework and get help from volunteer tutors

Guest post by 
Ryan Hittner

After spending the last year helping college-bound New York City high school students prepare for the SATs, I realized something; I can’t be the only one who loves doing this. It turns out, I wasn’t.

At the New York Cares SAT tutoring program, most volunteers were drawn to the program to make an educational impact on the community and also, because they simply enjoy teaching.

There was just one problem. When students had questions outside of the weekly 2-hour sessions, we couldn’t help. The Dittles iOS app is the solution to this problem.

Dittles is a free, fun, and simple way to connect students with tutors right on an iOS device. It works like this…a student takes a picture of the problem they are having trouble answering. The picture gets posted for anyone to see. Tutors can then post a targeted video lesson that addresses the student’s problem. Students will receive notification when a lesson is posted for them. If a student likes the lesson, a tutor has made an impact.

You can download Dittles on the App Store.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for posting about this great App. I am a 4th and 5th grade teacher who can really see the benefits of having Peer tutors outside of the school. Up until now I seen apps where students interact with a phone (your teacher app), not a person. Many of my students have smart phones and can utilize a great app like this to help them with their homework while taking ownership of their learning! Having that human contact can be key for many students.

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  2. I love this idea! I am a Kaplan GMAT and GRE instructor and I always ask my students to forward me screenshots of their online exercises so that I can help them with that. The Kaplan materials are copyrighted so they cannot just hit the print button in most places so that is why the screenshots are useful. If we could create an app that acts as a clearinghouse for snapshot submissions that would make our students' lives easier. Thanks for this idea!

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