The eduFire Blog

You’re probably noticing a few new changes to eduFire today. We’ve dropped “Language” from our tagline so now it simply reads “Live Video Learning” and made some changes to our homepage. All of these reflect the fact that while eduFire will always be a language learning site, it is our intention (and has been since our start) to make eduFire more than just a language learning site.

So it’s with great excitement today that we announce our next vertical: test preparation. Test prep is an industry I’m very familiar with. Like many of you I’ve taken a bunch of tests in my day (PSAT, SAT, ACT, LSAT, GMAT, CMA, CFA Level One and probably a bunch of others I’m forgetting). In addition, I spent a couple of years working for Kaplan and even launched a very basic GMAT prep site back in 2000.

Test prep was always a natural fit for the eduFire model. Companies like Kaplan, Princeton Review and other smaller tutoring companies tend to charge their students a lot and not pay their tutors a lot, at least relatively speaking (e.g., when I worked for Kaplan I was paid $20/hour while my students were billed $100/hour). In addition, web-based tutoring works very well because many people who are studying for exams have very busy schedules and love the convenience of being able to study from home rather than having to drive to a tutoring center.

I’ll be saying a lot more about this space in the future. For now, this is only a “soft launch” in the sense that we’re working to make sure everything goes well with our initial group of tutors before promoting the service more heavily. In the meantime, I wanted to answer a few questions that might be on your mind about this direction:

#1 – Why did you decide to expand into test prep?

In short, because you asked us to. A while back we asked the community what they most wanted to see here on eduFire and the most common response we’ve gotten since then is that people wanted to see eduFire expand into other areas besides languages. Certainly it’s something that we’ve discussed doing since the very beginning and to hear you ask for it provided the proper confirmation for us that it was the best direction to go.

#2 – Does this mean you won’t focus as much attention on language learning anymore?

Most definitely not. If anything, we feel that offering additional subjects on eduFire makes our language learning offering even more compelling. For starters, we expect test prep teachers to bring us all sorts of good ideas that we can implement on the site and share with language teachers (and vice versa of course). In addition, many tutors are qualified to teach both languages and test prep here (especially when it comes to tests that are language-focused like the TOEFL). Finally, many people who will here about eduFire for test prep may also be interested in language instruction or vice versa. In short, we think expanding will make eduFire much better for our language tutors and students!

#3 – Are there other areas that you’re planning to expand into?

Yes, but we’re going to hold off on launching them (and announcing them) for a while so we can give the proper attention to languages and test prep. There have been many requests for other subjects but we feel it’s important to take one step at a time. In the meantime, you’re welcome to mention in your profile other subjects that you want to teach. As we see critical mass forming in a certain area that will make it more likely that we’ll expand our services in that direction. Again, it’s about what you as a community want to see!

#4 – How do I sign up as a test prep teacher?

If you haven’t signed up for eduFire yet, then that’s your first step. Once you’ve signed up as a tutor you can add both languages and exams to your profile. If you already have an account here then it’s as simple as going in to edit your profile. As much as possible try to stick with the naming conventions we’re using on the site (e.g., acronyms for exams) so that you get grouped in with other teachers properly. The system is set up to help you with this by auto-completing when you start typing in a subject.

#5 – What are the differences/benefits of prepping for a test on eduFire versus going to Kaplan, Princeton Review, etc.?

As a person who has logged thousands of hours in the classroom and previously taught and tutored for Kaplan I think I can speak pretty well to some of the differences and benefits. First, let’s start with a couple of differences:

Structure/Uniformity – Your tutoring session may not be as structured or uniform as a session at a major test prep provider. At most test prep companies instructors are controlled (sometimes tightly) as to what they can teach. At eduFire what you’ll find is a number of teachers who have many years experience teaching (some at Kaplan, Princeton Review, etc.) and who each bring their unique style to our site.

Virtual Tutoring – Virtual tutoring is certainly different than face-to-face tutoring. You’ll be interacting with your teacher via a webcam, VoIP, screensharing, etc. It might take a little bit of time to adjust to but the reports from people who learn this way are highly positive. The trade-off is that you won’t need to commute to your tutoring session, have more flexible times for learning and can take advantage of some cool technology that most traditional teachers don’t use.

Community-Based Filtering – At eduFire we don’t “hire” teachers. Instead teachers sign up and are vetted based on the quality of the sessions they conduct here and other information. This system has worked remarkably well for languages but it is an important difference to note as it means that it’s important to “research” your tutor before signing up for a session. We give tutors the ability to list credentials, have prior students write testimonials, post a welcome video, etc. to make this process easy.

Now for a few benefits of online tutoring:

Convenience – You simply can’t beat the convenience of online tutoring. Many people commute long distances to go to tutoring centers, especially those who don’t live in large cities. In addition, it can often be difficult to find tutors at certain hours because typically when you most want a tutor is when everyone in your hometown wants one too. At eduFire you can find tutors from around the world so you can get a tutor at virtually any hour of the day. And the best part? You never have to leave your home.

Choice – When you go to a tutoring company you’re typically given either no choice of who your tutor will be or the option to select from a small number of choices. At eduFire, you have a lot more choice already and that will only grow with time. You’ve now opened up your learning options from people in your hometown to people anywhere in the world. This is huge!

Transparency – Try this. Go into Kaplan and ask them for the evaluation forms from every student who’s been taught by the tutor you’re considering. Also, ask them to give you the chance to contact all these students. You’ll get an interesting response… At eduFire we make the feedback given by students available to you. What’s even better is that you have the opportunity to reach out to these people and ask them about a tutor you are considering. Simply put, transparency breeds a better-quality experience.

Cost – We don’t feel that this is the main selling point of online tutoring but the fact of the matter is, it is cheaper. Why is this? The main reason is that we’re not building in a huge spread between what we charge a student and what we pay a tutor (this usually varies from 2x to 10x at tutoring companies). Instead, we simply collect a small fee (15%) which allows teachers to charge less while still pocketing more money. Win-win for you and your tutor!

As you can see, we’re really excited about this new direction. As always, we’d love to hear your feedback and please feel free to participate in our forums as there will be a lot of conversations about eduFire Test Prep there. Thanks again for supporting us. It means an incredible amount!

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