News Release
March 10, 2011
For Immediate Release
Free, Live, Interactive Math Help for Students
Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board participating in Math Homework Help project for second year
The Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board is pleased to announce that once again, it is participating in the Ministry of Education’s Math Homework Help pilot project. The project provides students in Grades 7 to 10 with free, real-time math tutoring by certified Ontario teachers, simply by visiting www.ontario.ca/homeworkhelp.
This is the second year the program is being offered through the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board. This year, the project has expanded to 31 English-Language school boards across the Province of Ontario, up from 16 boards last year.
Sam Mercurio, secondary school teacher and Dufferin-Peel’s e-Learning contact for the project has seen first-hand how helpful the online Homework Help is. “Students who have questions, but perhaps are too shy to ask them in class, feel comfortable asking questions online,” he explains. “In fact, students who log in for help, do so with an online profile, so their privacy is protected. Furthermore, students don’t have the option of chatting with each other, only the teacher, which makes it a very safe online learning environment.”
Students can log in Sunday to Thursday, from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., to receive individualized, confidential math tutoring from a certified Ontario teacher. There are also online, classroom-like forums for each grade, monitored by teachers, where students can view questions other students have submitted, and hear the teacher’s response while watching them work out the math problems on a whiteboard.
Videos of tutorials students have found most helpful, and commonly asked questions, are also available, anytime during the week, for students to log in and utilize. There are also online resources, such as math games and a virtual locker where students can save their work.
To access the Math Homework Help, students should go to www.ontario.ca/homeworkhelp and click on the link to ‘Log In to Homework Help.’ To register, students will need their OEN (Ontario Education Number), which differs from their student number and can be obtained from their school.
The Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board is one of the largest and most diverse school boards in Ontario. It serves approximately 86,000 students in 145 schools located throughout Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon and Orangeville. With over 10,000 employees, the board is also one of the largest employers in the region.
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Media Contact: Julia Seeratan, Communications Officer
(905) 890-0708 ext. 24278