I talked about the difference between online and in-person tutoring. You turned the subject into my school and how it's not environmentally conscious. That doesn't contribute to OP's original question nor does it offer a practical solution to the hypothetical problem that I brought up.

Nico, there's a time and place for everything. Everyone in this thread has something they care strongly about, but that doesn't mean we'll bring it up every chance we get. It's about understanding the right situation. This thread has nothing to do with "archaic policies", even if you can somehow remotely relate it to what I said. If you wanted to talk about it, you could have made a new thread and discussed it there.

Anyway, this is getting too off-topic and I didn't mean to ruin Laura's thread like this. Let's continuing answering her question and letting others discuss their opinions.

Okay that actually is not relevant at all to what we're discussing.

Just for clarification, what I said (not being able to spontaneously pull out your homework) has not hindered my online tutoring sessions in any way. I don't do that with my online tutors. If I have questions about the homework, I just take it up with the teacher that assigned it (the one at my school). It's just something I pointed out because my friend has used his private, real-life tutor to help him with homework, so I've seen it as a big difference between our experiences. However, it's not a big deal at all. I'm sure if I want homework help, I can easily find a way around it.

Okay I've been following this thread for a while and it looks like there's some unnecessary drama here.

@quynh: I completely understand what you are saying. With technology these days it is easier to share materials with people over the computer, but it's still not exactly the same as having them sit next to you and read it with you.

@nico: Whether or not her school is sustainable or not isn't the discussion here. Yes, discussions do evolve, but telling her to try and change her school's policy is completely off-topic. Also, if I read her original post correctly, the issue about not being to share her paper with her Skype tutor is just a small fraction of what she was trying to say and even she herself stated that it wasn't that big of a deal. It was nice of you to suggest a solution to her, but from my view, it was antagonistic that you quickly jumped out and attacked something she had no control over without even trying to fully understand her situation in the first place. And it is also not nice of you to mock her when all she did was politely tell you that your responses were unhelpful to her.

I've been reading all your comments and I just wanted to thank you for sharing your experiences / opinions! Most of you are in favour of online classes, so I may well give them a try! 

By the way, every new topic is welcome in any discussion (from my point of view) but I can assure you I am not bothered about any users' school's commitment to the environment and I have no interest in any sarcastic opinions, which are repetitive and from my point of view unrespectful.