How to use the Desk Tutor

Talking to the tutor

• Hold the space bar down while you talk, and let go when you have finished. The tutor hears you only while the bar is held, and it does not look at your page while you talk. Nothing is recorded.
• Tap the space bar once, without talking, to say look at my page. That is the only time the tutor takes a picture of the desk. If it needs to see your page, it asks you to tap.
• Keep the book or your paper flat under the camera, and keep faces out of view: the camera is for paper and hands. If a face is in the picture, the picture is not taken.
• When you answer a question with a letter, say the letter with its word: B, diplomacy, or number four is C. A letter said alone is hard to hear.
• You can also write your answer on your paper and tap the bar.
• Work on paper as you normally would: the tutor looks at what you have written, so show your working, not only the answer.

What you can ask for, in any session

• I'm stuck on number 7. The tutor looks at what you have tried and gives you the smallest hint that gets you moving. It does not give answers before you have tried.
• Check my answer. Say the number and your answer. Once you have committed to an answer, the tutor tells you plainly whether it is right. If it is wrong, it helps you find your own mistake first.
• Check this page. It tells you how many are right and which numbers deserve a second look — not the answers.
• What does ominous mean? It tells you, and the word goes on your word list for tailored practice.
• Show me the rule.   Put it on the board.   Work a similar one on the board. See The board.
• Draw the figure. The tutor draws a figure or a graph on the screen from the numbers in the question. If it cannot make out a printed figure, it may ask you to draw and label it on your paper — that is good practice for the test.
• Explain why. After a question is settled, the tutor can say what the idea was, in a sentence you can carry to the next question.
• If you say you are tired or stuck for a while, the tutor may suggest a short break or an easier problem.
• Note to Denise, the clock is hard to read. A note for Denise, who runs the tutor: say the phrase and the note in one press, or say Note to Denise by itself, let go, and say the note at the next press. The tutor says Note recorded. and goes on. The note goes word for word into the session's note, under its own heading, and nowhere else: the tutor is not shown it.

What the tutor will not do

• Give you an answer you have not tried.
• Answer questions that are not about the work. Anything else you ask is passed to your parent to answer, word for word, and the tutor says so.

The board

The screen is dark while you work, so that it does not pull you away from the paper. But the tutor can light it up like a sheet of scratch paper when seeing something laid out helps more than hearing it. You can ask for it.

• Put the rule on the board. A rule or a method, in a few lines, left in view while you try your problem with it.
• Show me a similar one on the board. A worked example with different numbers, one step at a time — your own problem stays yours to solve.
• Put the word on the board. A word and its meaning, where you can see it.
• Draw it. A figure, a graph or a set of points, drawn exactly from the numbers.
• Clear the board. The screen goes dark again.

Pausing and stopping

• Pause: press P, or the pause button at the bottom right, or say pause. The camera turns off and the screen says the session is paused. In a timed section the clock stops. Press the space bar when you are back.
• End the session: say I'm done for today, or press end session twice. The tutor says goodbye and writes the note for your parent.
• Exit closes the tutor altogether. Press it twice.
• If nobody has pressed the bar for twenty minutes, the tutor asks whether you are still working. Tap the bar once if you are.

Homework help

Your parent chooses Homework help and the subject on the setup page. Bring the homework to the desk and work on it; the tutor helps when you ask — a hint, a rule, a worked example with different numbers — and checks an answer when you ask it to. It goes by the method your worksheet or textbook shows. The work you hand in is your own.

French

Your parent chooses Homework help and French. The tutor speaks French and listens for French, so answer it in French, holding the bar as usual. When you are stuck, it puts what it said on the board in French with the English under it. You can write a question in English on your paper and tap the bar. Studying for a test? Say so and show it the unit's pages: it quizzes you, one translation at a time on the board, and you write your answers on paper. The French is spoken a little slower than the speed set on Check the desk. On the French page your parent chooses whether the tutor's words show on the screen in French as it speaks.

Essay writing

Your parent chooses the Writing center and what to write: a story to analyze, or a history source to write from. The story or the source is the tutor's own, with its assignment, and you print it first. This is the one kind of session in which the tutor helps as much as you need: it shows you how first, then the two of you write together, and then you write on your own. The tutor begins by saying the question the essay answers and putting it on the board, where it stays. Ten minutes of sentence work on paper comes next; then you read the story through on your own, pencil in hand, marking the lines that bear on the question, anything else that strikes you, and any word you do not know, which the tutor explains before the talk about your marks begins. When you cannot start a sentence it gives you a nudge; when you are stuck it writes a sentence on the board, and you write it in your own words. The program counts how many of your sentences were copied, so that the number can go down from one essay to the next. An essay can take more than one session: say carry on and it picks up where you left off. Your own schoolwork is not for this: that is Homework help.

A letter of your own. Your parent chooses the Writing center and A letter of the student's own: a thank-you after a visit, a letter to a teacher or a relative. There is nothing to print. Tell the tutor whom the letter is to and what it has to say, and it puts the plan on the board; then one sentence at a time: say it aloud, write it, tap. For every sentence the tutor says it back, names what is wrong by name ("it" with no name, two ideas in one sentence, the reason does not explain the thing, the reader cannot see anything), says why for the person reading, and tells you what to do. When you are stuck it writes a sentence on the board from your own details, and you put it in your own words. Every sentence has to carry one concrete idea, a fact the reader can picture; a sentence that says nothing (thank you for spending time on me) is not mended but replaced, from your answer to the tutor's question about what happened. The test, which you can run yourself: read the sentence as the person receiving the letter, and ask what question it leaves you with (spent time on what?); if the next sentence does not answer it, the sentence is not done. Every fact in the letter is yours: the tutor never makes one up.

Your own writing homework. Your parent chooses the Writing center and The student's own writing homework, and unlocks the session with the parent's code: six digits that a parent enters before each such session. At home a parent sets them on that page the first time; on the site a parent presses Email me a code and the code goes to the parent's email address on file, so that nobody at the desk can make one. The program checks it, locks the code for a while after too many wrong tries, and locks the kind again when the session begins, so the code is needed every time. This is for a piece of writing you will hand in: an essay, a paragraph, answers in whole sentences. Put the assignment sheet under the camera and tap first, so that the tutor knows what it asks. Then the plan on paper for each paragraph (the topic sentence, three or four details as notes, the closing sentence), and then one sentence at a time, as for a letter: the tutor says the sentence back, names the fault by name, says the question a reader is left with, and tells you the move to make (cut it at the and; make the because answer why; expand it with when, where or who; replace the empty phrase with what was done). When you are stuck after two nudges it writes a sentence on the board built only from your own details, and you write it in your own words. Every idea, fact and quotation is yours: the tutor never supplies one, and the parent's note says exactly which sentences the tutor put on the board. Forgotten the code? At home, delete the file parent_code.json in the tutor's folder and set a new one; on the site, press Email me a new code.

A tour of the tutor

For showing the tutor to a visitor. On the home page, under the tiles, Take the tour opens its page; print the tour's sheet (one page) and press Start the tour. The real tutor runs five short stations in order, SSAT verbal, SSAT quantitative, homework help, French and writing, two or three exchanges each, and moves on by itself; the whole tour takes five to ten minutes. The visitor sits at the desk with the sheet, lined paper and a pencil, and answers as a student would: hold the space bar to talk, tap it to show the page. A mark at the top left of the screen says which station it is at; the right arrow key skips to the next. Questions about the tutor itself are answered during a tour. Nothing is kept: no note, no word list, no record. It is a live session, so it costs a few cents a press and needs the camera and the microphone. The scripted demo (See a demo on the site) is the other way to show it: no AI, no cost, no interaction.

Tailored practice: your words

The words you did not know go on your list during any session. In tailored practice the tutor takes them a few at a time. For each word:

• Write the word and its meaning on your paper, or make a flash card (the word on one side, the meaning on the other), and tap the bar. It has to be your own handwriting: a printed card does not count.
• Write a sentence of your own that shows what the word means, and tap.
• After five words, the tutor's questions: synonyms, analogies and sentences to complete, as on the test. Say the letter with its word.

• A word you have already written and used in a sentence, on an earlier day, is not written again: the tutor goes straight to questions on it.
• Just questions, please. The tutor asks questions on the words you have already written, and leaves the writing of the others for another time.
• Ten words today. If your parent has not chosen how many, the tutor asks you; you can ask for more when those are done.
• A word list on paper: your parent chooses a word list brought on paper; put the list under the camera and tap, check what the tutor read, and the words go on your list. If you have already written those words and used them in sentences at home, your parent chooses already done at home under it, and the tutor skips the writing: questions only.
• For school or for the SSAT: your parent chooses, under the word list, which kind of questions the tutor asks: the kinds your class's vocabulary quizzes use (the word in a sentence, fill in the blank, synonyms, antonyms, four choices) or the SSAT's (synonyms, analogies, sentence completions, five choices). Up to grade 6 it is school unless chosen otherwise.
• You can stop whenever you say so. Your words keep.

A timed section of a practice test

Your parent chooses the section and the time, and whether the questions are on paper (printed first, with an answer sheet of circles) or on the screen (when there is no printer: you write the number of each question and the letter of your answer on one sheet of your own paper).

• The tutor tells you how the section works. Press the space bar when you are ready, and the clock starts. The time left is at the top of the screen.
• While the clock runs the tutor answers nothing except how much time is left (or tap the bar to hear it). It cannot see your page during the section.
• You will be told when five minutes are left.
• Finished early? Hold the bar and say I am finished, or press end session twice. The tutor asks whether you are sure; say yes and the clock stops.
• When the time is up, or you have finished, put your answer sheet under the camera, the whole sheet in view, and tap. The tutor reads it and puts what it read on the screen: check it against your sheet and tell it any that are different (number twelve is C). You may correct the reading; you may not change an answer.
• Then your score, and the questions you missed on the screen. Yes goes over them now, one at a time; no keeps them for another day. Ask out of what? and the score is said again, with the number of questions.

A practice test with the tutor, untimed

Under Work with the tutor, your parent can choose one of our practice tests and the section. The questions come up on the screen when the session starts and stay there; there is no clock. Work them on your own paper, in any order, and talk to the tutor as on any day: help me with number 5, number 5 is D, put the rule on the board. Scroll the questions with the trackpad or the arrow keys. Nothing is scored.

Tailored practice: what was missed

The questions you had wrong or left blank on a timed section are kept. In this practice the tutor takes them one at a time: it tells you what you chose on the test (and nothing else), you work the question again, and then it gives you a similar question of its own. If you sat the section on the screen, the question is put on the board for you; if on paper, bring the printed section and put the page under the camera.

Tailored practice: the kinds of question missed on the real test

Your parent can tick, on the setup page, the kinds of question you keep getting wrong, named as the SSAT score report names them: synonyms, analogies, geometry and measurement, the reading questions that ask what a passage suggests, and so on. The tutor makes up questions of those kinds, at the level of the real test, one at a time on the board. Say the letter with its word. It tells you at once whether you are right and why, and when a rule is new to you (the exterior angle of a polygon, say) it teaches the rule first and then asks. The kind you miss most comes round most often. You can stop whenever you say so.

For the parent

The setup page opens on a home page: a greeting to the student, with Exit and Change the student; the At the desk box, with what to do at the desk and the camera, microphone and voice by name; the instructions and the previous session with its Continue button; and four tiles, Homework help, Test prep, Writing center and Reading center. A tile opens that center's own page, where the kind of work is chosen at the top (homework in one subject or the class's vocabulary list; tailored practice, a timed section or work with the tutor; a story, a history source or a letter; read along), with its choices and the Start button. Check the desk holds the camera's picture, the microphone test and the voice; Change the student holds the name, grade, level, test date and pronoun.

The camera is for paper and hands. Every picture is checked for faces on this computer before it is shown, saved or sent; if a face is found the picture is blurred and goes nowhere. No check is perfect, so keep the camera pointing straight down at the desk. A test photo is saved on this computer as test_photo.jpg, with a dated copy in the test_photos folder; photos taken during a session are never saved.

• The setup page is yours: the student's name and grade, the kind of session, the camera and microphone (chosen by name), the voice. The student does not use it. If the browser does not offer the voice chosen when the page opens (Chrome's Google voices come over the network, and now and then a tab is without them until it is reloaded), a voice of the same accent stands in at normal speed, and the Voice line on the strip says so: reload the page in Chrome before starting.
• Tailored practice is one button; under it, what there is to work on — the word list, what was missed on timed sections, a word list brought on paper, the kinds of question missed on the real test — each with its count. A kind with nothing waiting is greyed out. For the kinds of question, tick them as the score report names them (Geometry and Measurement, Comprehending Language Use); the note tells you how many of each kind were right, today and over all days. The student is never told a score or which kind is weakest.
• The word list is shown under the student's own word list, a row to a word with a Remove button, for words that should not be there (another child's, say, who used the tutor under this student's name).
• A word list brought on paper: if the student has already written the words with their meanings and used each in a sentence with you at home, choose already done at home under it. The tutor reads the list, has the student check it, and then asks its questions on those words only, with no writing. The note says which words came in that way.
• A timed section: you choose the time (standard, time and a half, double) and whether the questions are on paper or on the screen. The student is never asked why.
• After every session a note is written for you: what was worked on, how it went, what to go over together; for a timed section, the score and every question missed, by its word where it has one; for tailored practice, the words added and practised.
• Anything the student asks that is not about the work is passed to you in the note, in the student's own words.
• Note to Denise: anything said at the desk after that phrase, by the student or by you, is in the note word for word under its own heading, and the tutor is not shown it. Use it for whatever Denise should know: what went wrong, what to change.
• A tour of the tutor: the link under the tiles, for a visitor. Five short stations with the real tutor in one session; print its sheet first; the right arrow skips a station; nothing is kept.
• The screen stays dark during a session on purpose. The only exceptions are the board, the clock and the questions of a section shown on the screen, and the small picture of the camera's view in the corner.