Archive for October, 2008
World-class UI/UX skills? Wanna come help us change the world?
Posted on 31. Oct, 2008 by reg.
Hey all. We have an amazing opportunity here at eduFire for the right person. We’re looking for a world-class talent to join our small but growing team. I’ve listed the job description below. If this is you, we’d *love* to hear from you. If this *isn’t* you please feel free to spread to anyone who you think it might be a fit for. We’d be much obliged!
We’re incredibly excited about the future for eduFire and this person will have an opportunity to make a *huge* impact!!
-Jon
Lead UI/User Experience Designer at eduFire.com
“Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” -William Butler Yeats
Do you want to change the world by making learning fun for students and empowering teachers around the world?
Are you fanatical about delivering world-class user experiences?
Would you like to join a small team where you’ll be the lead interface and user experience designer, working with two talented and experienced Rails developers and a customer-focused CEO?
You…
-Think in terms of tasks and users when designing applications
-Possess solid CSS skills and the ability to produce interfaces that are fast and work consistently across browsers
-Have a portfolio online of web *apps* that you’ve developed
-Aren’t scared off by code or the occasional controller
-Prefer to design in HTML rather than Photoshop (though you’re comfortable with Photoshop and Illustrator)
-Have experience using web analytics software to gather data that improves the user experience
-Are passionate about shipping products that delight customers and enjoy watching people use your product and learning from the experience (even when it’s painful)
-Live in the Bay Area or are willing to relocate
Oh, and you’re looking forward to having a massive impact on the direction of the product and the look and feel of the site.
Us…
-A small team of experienced professionals focused on doing one thing: Revolutionizing Education
-Recently funded by a top tier VC (take that economy!)
-Employ the “Getting Real” philosophy and engage in test-driven development and paired programming
-Looking to hire a lead UI/UX designer who can work closely with our CEO and two developers to continue to build a simple product that our passionate community can use to teach and learn
-Results-driven, we move fast and we don’t waste time with pointless meetings
Last but not least we have fun, love flexibility and enjoy working on a revenue-generating product that already has a lot of raving fans (check out http://edufire.com/forums and see what people are saying about us in real-time).
If you like how this sounds, please take a few minutes and read our blog (http://blog.edufire.com) and manifesto (http://tinyurl.com/5dhgqx) and spend some time on our site. If this resonates with you drop a line with ”eduFire Lead Designer” in the subject line to jobs at edufire dot com. Please send us URLs of your work!
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Announcing our Youtube Contest Winners
Posted on 22. Oct, 2008 by Koichi.
EduFire did a little contest a while back, where we had members of the Edufirejapanese Youtube Channel tell us why they wanted to learn Japanese (or another language / skill) in order to get some free lessons on eduFire. Here’s how we narrowed things down:
Best 1-shot video – 3 Free one-on-one lessons, T-shirt, and $25 at learnoutloud
Most Creative video – 3 Free one-on-one lessons, T-shirt, and $25 at learnoutloud
Best non-Japanese video - 3 Free one-on-one lessons, T-shirt, and $25 at learnoutloud
So, let’s not beat around the bush anymore. Here are our three winners! Thank you so much for everyone who made a video, I know we all enjoyed watching them, and it was pretty tough to make our decision. So, here they are! [...]
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6 Reasons Why Online Education Will Boom in the Bust
Posted on 13. Oct, 2008 by jon.
Recently we’ve all been bombarded with news about the financial crisis and dire warnings about what’s ahead for the economy. As of this writing, InTrade has the likelihood that the US economy will go into recession in 2008 at 45%. These odds jump to almost 80% in 2009. Companies are hunkering down for what could be an extended period of decreased consumer spending, reduced access to capital and downtrodden financial markets.
So what will happen to online education over the next few years? Admittedly, I’ve *very* biased but I think the next few years could actually bring a boom in online education. For the following six reasons it seems like online education could indeed be counter-cyclical and steal market share from traditional education in the near future. Here’s why:
#1 – Many people will re-tool in a downturn. When times are good many people tend to be very focused on making money. When times turn bad then the focus is not so much on “How much can I make?” but rather on how “How do I make sure I’m not out of work?” Re-tooling, getting a certification, etc. are things that now become even more important. And for those who do loose their job, the focus often shifts to finding a new job or even on finding a new career. Education lies at the center of all of this attention and in a world that is changing as fast as ours, people who have often been doing pretty much the same work for years now are faced with the proposition of having to do a lot of learning again. This of course isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it can be a great chance to focus on what’s truly important (as happened a lot after 09/11).
#2 – In a down economy, many people will head back to grad school. During the go-go years of the dot com bubble many people left business school early to pursue start-ups. After the bust people who were laid off tended to “hide out” in school for a few years. This is pretty natural. The opportunity cost associated with going to school (in terms of missed opportunities) is much higher when times are good than when times are bad. It won’t surprise me at all to see record numbers of people pursue graduate degrees in coming years. If that’s the case, online education that focuses on preparing people for graduate school entrance exams should be a very hot area.
#3 – People will be more price sensitive in the coming years. When times are good a lot of money gets thrown around at stuff with less concern for what it costs. However, when times get tight a lot more thought goes into spending patterns. Online education tends to be a fair amount cheaper than traditional education, in large part because of decreased overhead and less inefficiency. For example, at eduFire, private tutoring tends to run at 25-50% the cost of private tutoring at brick-and-mortar companies, even though in many cases the tutors are the same ones who’ve taught at traditional education companies in the past.
#4 – Rising gas prices become more of a concern. Similar to the previous reason, people are increasingly likely to focus on gas prices when considering decisions. If someone is consider a class at a tutoring company or a local community college and it’s a 10 mile commute each way that’s like a $4-$6 surcharge in gas prices alone for each class. All of this adds up and the cumulative impact of a weak economy and rising energy prices is already starting to cause an increase in the cocooning effect. That cocooning effect should drive increased demand for online education.
#5 – Larger number of highly-qualified teachers. There is likely to be an increased number of people looking for full-time or part-time employment in the coming months. Many of them may turn to online education as a means to supplement their income. This will likely mean some highly-qualified teachers who will be available here and on other online education sites. An increase in the number of teachers will likely result in a better experience for students looking to learn online.
#6 – Relative strength in foreign economics and/or weakness in the dollar will allow the US to export education to the rest of the world. This is fairly US-centric in nature but a weaker US economy relative to the rest of the world plus a depreciating dollar could mean a lot of American teachers will have an easier time finding students in other parts of the world. For example, in the last year, the US Dollar has fallen almost 20% relative to the Japanese Yen. This means that a Japanese student looking to take a class or tutoring session from an American instructor now finds it almost 20% cheaper. While these changes have negative ramifications as well (a declining US Dollars means Americans must pay more on a relative basis for foreign goods), it could help to spur demand for American classes and tutors.
Of course, if the financial crisis gets too bad it won’t be good for anyone. But at least when it comes to online education it’s very likely that the trends listed above will keep the industry strong despite a downturn. It will certainly be interesting to see how this all plays out.
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Win free lessons on eduFire!
Posted on 11. Oct, 2008 by jon.
We’re running a contest right now and giving away some free lessons. Koichi has all the details here. To enter the contest all you need to do is create a short video telling us why you want to win (again, read all the glorious details here).
A bunch of people are entered already and I had a blast this morning checking out some of the entrants. A couple of my favorites are below. The contest ends in three short days so get your video together and get entered quickly. Best of luck to all of you who are participating and thanks for the super entertaining videos!
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Introducing Courses
Posted on 01. Oct, 2008 by jon.
Yesterday we announced a feature that we’ve been very excited about for a long time. Today we have another one to announce: Courses.
What are courses?
Courses are eduFire sessions with multiple students. A teacher can choose to teach a small handful of students (e.g., a Spanish conversation class) or a larger group of people in more of a lecture format (e.g., An Introduction to the Japanese Language).
Note: Courses is very much a beta offering at this point and there will likely be some kinks for us to work out.
What happens in a course?
To be honest, it’s fairly similar to the experience you might have in a traditional classroom (except hopefully a lot more fun and educational!). The teacher is typically live on video and audio and often is sharing some sort of presentation with students. The students might text to communicate with the teacher and other students or they might be live on audio and video. The teacher sets the parameters based on the type of class that’s being offered.
How much does a course cost?
When we officially launch this in the future the teachers will be able to set their own prices for courses. However, for a limited time only we’re making all of the courses free for students. These are beta classes and we’re still working out some of the kinks so we’re excited to make these available to all of you for free while we get everything running smoothly. Can’t beat that huh?
Are courses one-time only or recurring?
This depends on the teacher as well. Some teachers might choose to teach a one-off class (e.g., my upcoming GMAT Basics seminar) while other teachers will choose to have class on recurring basis (e.g., Sebastian’s Intermediate Spanish Conversation class which meets on Tuesdays).
How can I teach a class?
Right now we’re working with a select group of teachers to get this off the ground. Soon we’ll open to all of our tutors to create courses. That’s going to be very, very cool so stay tuned!!
How can I sign up for a class?
Simple. Just go to edufire.com/courses and sign up for your favorite classes. Many classes have already filled up so scoot on over there quickly to reserve your spot. We’ll be adding some more classes soon so stay tuned to the blog and our forums for updates when we add classes.
Courses is a really exciting step for us and it’ll be fun to see some of our amazing tutors be able to offer their teaching services at an even lower price to students. It’s a great and amazingly convenient and based on what I’ve seen so far, a ton of fun!!
