TAKT Tutoring
- The STEM Academy Paper
- Jun 23, 2020
- 4 min read
Cherry Marni & TAKT Tutoring Team
6.23.20
Hello everyone! Recently, STEM Newspaper interviewed TAKT Tutoring about their new tutoring services. Down below is the interview!
1. Hey guys! Let’s start off by telling us a little bit about what you do. What is TAKT? What do you guys do?
TAKT Tutoring is an iOS app that we have been working on for the last few months. Especially in times like this, we think that it will be a great help for many students who are not able to ask questions as easily as they could if they were physically in school. So in more detail, a student signs up for our app and then chooses any classes that they are currently enrolled in. Then, when they have a question about that class, they can ask it and the question will be visible to all other students that are enrolled in that class. Then, all the students that see the question, have an opportunity to answer it. In addition, teachers that sign up can answer the question, and verify students' responses that are correct. Overall, the app is basically a chat forum, open to all of the students in the school, which allows for an incredible potential to get an answer to your question. As of right now, we are in the process of improving the app according to the feedback we received in early beta testing. In addition, we are working to advertise our app and bring more people into the beta testing, so we can have the app in its best shape for the official release.
2. Who is a part of your team? How can people contact you if necessary?
Our team is made up of three people from STEM: Aadit Gupta, Anurag Ray Chowdhury, and Ethan Miller. We also have one person from East: Sid Bulusu. If anyone has any questions about the app they can feel free to contact us personally or to our app’s email: takttutoring@gmail.com.
3. How and when did TAKT get started? Why was this initiative important to you?
Work first began for TAKT in the early summer before our Junior year. The original plan was to develop an app that was helpful for the district and its students. Eventually, we came up with the idea of creating an app that will allow students to ask questions about work in a much easier way. This is important to us because we understand how difficult asking questions about school work can be. Especially after-school when there is no way to ask your teacher personally. So we wanted to help students by creating an easier way to ask a question and get an answer to that question.
4. Talk a little bit about your journey starting TAKT. What were some setbacks you faced? How did you get through them?
One of the first setbacks that we faced was deciding which platform we would create the app for. We ultimately decided on iOS, because it allows students to be able to access the app right from their phones while making it available for the majority of students. Another large problem that we faced was building the infrastructure for the question-response functionality. As simple as asking a question and responding to it is, this part of the project took us over 6 months to complete.
5. What were some of your favorite moments on your journey starting up TAKT?
One of our favorite moments was looking back at the latter stages of our development and seeing how far the app has come and how far the functionality has improved.
6. What sets TAKT apart from other tutoring services already available today?
There are many small things that make TAKT very different from similar services. This is very different from other internet chat rooms because students are organized by their school, so your question remains limited to the people you know best, trust, and that are most likely to know the answer to your question. It is also different than any effort that a teacher will put forth in order to create a question form because all of your classes are available. So, no more searching the back alleys of Schoology for a question form that probably doesn't exist.
7. How can students get involved with TAKT and become a part of the team?
Right now, any Year One Physics students are able to join the beta testing program. We are looking into the option of bringing in more classes to take part in the testing, so pay attention to your teacher’s Schoology messages. We expect an official school-wide release sometime soon.
8. Is TAKT offering any tutoring services at this very moment?
Any student that can join the beta testing is able to use the app to ask questions and form responses right now.
9. Is there anything else you would like us to include in our article about TAKT? Any other questions you would like to answer?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/15xmV4RXnrUL-P17yy8WcwvjHEdkgMAN8DbpCNehGbiI/edit?usp=sharing ← this is the link for the instructions to join the beta testing.
And for those that get the app, be sure to update it so that you have all of the latest features and functionality!
We hope you guys make use of this amazing service! We've linked their website down below for more information.
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