Online - but how?

My offer does not require you to pay a "$100 per family setup fee", however. The two most important points from this clip are: First, the comment that "for Theo, and likely many others who use online tutors, the distance and lack of face-to-face interaction is not an issue". And, second, the pupils assertion, based on his personal experience, that "I don't think it's a fluke or a fad or any of those things ... um ... in that it just works so well".
See also:

The tools shown in these examples (chat and relatively simple whiteboard) are less well suited for online math-tutoring than what a combination of Skype and NetDesk# (freely avaiblable for Windows-XP, Vista and Windows 7) can offer.

How it works

The pupil proposes a specific date and time for an online-conference, which I will enter into my calendar with his or her initials. We both go online with the same voice-over-IP program at that time. I will transmit the address of the whiteboard server through the chat of the VoIP program. The pupil enters that address into a copy of my whiteboard that he runs on his computer, thus enabling sharing contents with the copy of that same whiteboard that is running on my computer.

Besides offering such synchronous online meetings, using an audio connection and a shared whiteboard, I can also give a useful amount of asynchronous help, through e-mail: such as proofreading solution attempts (example: scan of the pupils work overlayed with my corrections, in German) or completely worked out solutions of entire exercise sheets and exams (example, again in German)

Prerequisites

Besides a decent (but not neccessarily "super-fast") Internet connection, some software for collaboration over the net is required. Currently, the following variants suggest themselves:

Operating System	Software
XP, Vista, or Windows 7	Skype for audio, and my own program NetDesk# (or, perhaps also possible: OneNote) as whiteboard.
Linux oder Mac OS X	Skype for audio and file transfer, VncViewer or any internet browser for the passive viewing of my whiteboard.

For the audio-link, headset and microphone are required - but a video camera (webcam) is not, because transmitting a video image would take away network bandwidth from the much more important audio connection.

A scanner (or a digital camera) that allows you to digitize paper documents is almost a necessity...

Writing on the NetDesk# whiteboard with a Tablet-PC is particularly pleasant. Here, for example, an old "slate" that I got for SFr. 450 through eBay:

Another possibility is to use a small external tablet like the Wacom Bamboo:

But many, indeed most of my online students use an ordinary PC without external tablet. If need be, these students must use a scanner, a webcam or a digital camera to insert images of paper documents into the whiteboard.

Expected Cost

The charge for an audio and application-sharing link over an ordinary dial-up connection is so small as to be essentially negligible.

There is no need to pay me for my labor either. — More emphatically: I do not want to get paid.

"The best things in life are free; but the lyrics to that song are not yet in the public domain."

- Donald E. Knuth