The Future of Education

The paper focuses on a synchronous, one-to-one tutoring service supplied by the web learning portal “Matematica On Video” (www.matematicaonvideo.it) and on its most interesting functional and technological solutions. Among others, we could mention: the implementation of WebRTC standard, that allows real time, intra browser, plugin-free audio/video communication, assuring high quality and low latency video flows; the application of the Canvas APIs and HTML5/WebSockets technology to realize a shared interactive whiteboard enabling tutor and student to simultaneous, real time handwriting on the same sheet; the realization of an online lectures reservation system, inspired both by tools for the remote management of laboratories and libraries and by procedures for the access to videoconference sessions; the implementation of e-commerce features, based on virtual money, in order to support an easy and efficient execution of the transactions induced by interactions among tutor, student and service manager (such features could avoid commission costs and operating time; they could also drastically reduce the transfer of real money among the agents, improve promotion and facilitate the customization of commercial offer). These and other solutions, suitably extended and generalized, will be embedded in a new web services suite named ELWA, which could be of interest to remote education and consulting companies and institutions. At the end of the paper, we will illustrate the main principles inspiring this new project.