Facebook may be helping improve the quality of learning at the University of Florida.

According to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, students at UF can use a Facebook application to find tutors to help them in their studies. The students can search for tutors by subject and can find out rates and ratings. The cost is $0 to $50 per hour, with some volunteering their time as tutors.

The students (or their parents) make payment with credit cards, with 5 percent of the charge going to Tutor Matching Service, the UF operation that provides the tutor service. More than 120 UF students have registered to be tutors. UF students, students at Santa Fe College and high school students in Gainesville are using the tutoring service.

I’ll be interested in seeing who has registered to be a tutor to help students with their writing. Every semester, several students I work with could use some extra help with grammar basics beyond what we are doing in Writing for Mass Communication. So this tutoring service could be a benefit for our students.