Archive for November, 2008
One-To-Many Gets Organized
Posted on 22. Nov, 2008 by Koichi.
We’ve been testing out One-To-Many for almost two months, now. When we first started, only a few classes were running, which made the classes page really easy to navigate. As time went by, the list got longer and more varied. Thanks to the wonderful eduFire engineers, classes just got a little easier to navigate. Now, you have a few options to order the list. It looks a little bit like this:
Starting Soonest: Find out what classes are coming up next. Who knows, maybe there’s one happening in the next few minutes!
Alphabetical: Looking for a specific class? Checking things out alphabetically will help you get there!
Recently Added: Want to see who just made a class? Looking for something new (that wasn’t there before)? Click on this!
# of Students: Want to see what the most popular classes are? You can figure out which classes have the most students in them with this option.
If you haven’t gone in to try out One-To-Many classes, definitely give it a whirl! They are a lot of fun, and right now, they’re free!
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eduFire Groups!
Posted on 20. Nov, 2008 by Koichi.
eduFire just got a little more social! Users are now able to create and join groups, which will allow you to find like-minded scholars, meet great teachers, or just have a little fun. Although it was just released, we’re already seeing a wide variety of groups and some good activity! [...]
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TeachStreet Expands to the Bay Area
Posted on 19. Nov, 2008 by Koichi.
Our friends over at TeachStreet are probably celebrating today. They’ve just announced their expansion into the Bay Area, and added over 65,000 classes, coaches, and experts to their already robust database. That’s a big number! Congratulations, TeachStreet!
So why do we love TeachStreet so much? I feel like TeachStreet and eduFire have similar goals (to change the way people think about education). We go about accomplishing these goal in different ways, which is what I think makes us such a great pair! TeachStreet offers tools to teachers and students to help them connect. What makes them different from us is that they like to do things in person. If you want to find a class on Japanese, Yoga, Photoshop, or anything else, TeachStreet helps you find someone in your local area to teach it to you. TeachStreet provides a great, free service, and you should definitely check it out if you live in the San Fransisco, Portland, or Seattle areas.
Did you know that you can add a TeachStreet link on your eduFire profile? If you edit your profile, it’s one of the URL options that’s listed there. If you’re a tutor, and you live in one of the areas listed above, definitely give TeachStreet a try if you’re looking to find some face-to-face students. If you’re a student, and you want to find yourself a live teacher, there’s that option as well, too!
Anyways, we just wanted to congratulate TeachStreet on it’s recent expansion, and all it has done to empower teachers and students! Keep up the great work!
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eduFire Town Hall Roundup, November 17, 2008
Posted on 17. Nov, 2008 by Koichi.
eduFire had it’s third Town Hall tonight. Thank you to everyone who attended! Besides enjoying Ron’s webcam (which can turn him into a dinosaur, a cat, and other things), we talked about a plethora of subjects, which will be relayed to you here!
eduFire “Groups”
Over the next week or two, a new social feature will appear on the site: Think Facebook Groups…but more, sophisticated (we hope!). Members of eduFire will be able to create and join groups, which will help users meet up with like-minded people (Soccer Moms for Spanish!). It’s just one more step towards making education a much more social experience! We look forward to seeing what kinds of groups you come up with, and how this new feature will be used to further your education (and not to mention your eduFire friendships!). [...]
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Who’s on Twitter?
Posted on 14. Nov, 2008 by Koichi.
More and more people out there are using Twitter to micro-blog their lives. It’s becoming a great way to connect with people all over the world, learn about people’s lives, and tell others about yourself as well. In fact, eduFire recently gave users the ability to add your other websites to your profile (what? eduFire isn’t the only place that you visit? Absurd!). It’s been about two months since that happened, and so we’ve found all the eduFire members that use Twitter so we can share it with you. I encourage you to follow each other, learn from each other, and become a closer community! If you’re not on Twitter already, what are you waiting for! If you are on Twitter and you’re not following us, here’s our Twitter page. We’ll follow you back! [...]
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I’m eduFired Up! User-Generated edu-Definitions
Posted on 10. Nov, 2008 by Koichi.
Over in the forums, our wonderful users have been coming up with all sorts of new eduFire related words. This thread was started up by one of the Korean tutors, Ginny, and then it spread like eduFire (ouch lame) and others have contributed a book’s worth of definitions on top of it all. Here’s what’s been created so far. There might be a part two blog post if people keep on adding more! [...]
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Using Google Docs to Collaborate with Students
Posted on 08. Nov, 2008 by Koichi.
Cool Cat Teacher just wrote a post about the use of Google Docs in her classroom, and how it allows her students to collaborate on spreadsheets, documents, and presentations. That got me thinking. How could it be used by tutors (or the students of tutors) on eduFire? Google Docs are a great resource for teachers and students alike to allow collaboration of documents – something you can’t do with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Excel. Here’s what I came up with – let’s see if you can add some more. [...]
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New One-to-Many Features for Tutors
Posted on 06. Nov, 2008 by Koichi.
Recently, tutors got a plethora of new features when it comes to setting up a one-to-many class (thank you eduFire engineers!). Although they’re pretty small, all of them are really useful, so if you’re a tutor (or you’re planning on teaching some one-to-many classes when we get out of testing), definitely play close attention.
In the image above, you can already see a few of the new features. Now, instead of having to show the Youtube clip that’s on your profile, you can choose a different one that fits your course better. You can make your own video and upload it, or just simply use someone else’s. It’s up to you! Along the same lines, you can now upload a custom image that goes along with your class. For example, for my “Japanese Counters” class, I used an image of “Nabeatsu,” a comedian in Japan who just counts (funnier than it sounds…maybe). [...]
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eduFire Classroom Culture
Posted on 03. Nov, 2008 by Koichi.
*First of all, if you haven’t checked out the free lessons that are going on at the moment, you can do so by clicking here. It’s in testing right now, so don’t expect everything to be perfect, though we are definitely moving in that direction at a nice and quick pace!
One thing that’s been really fascinating about eduFire’s One-to-Many classroom testing is the culture that’s being built up around it. Live video learning hasn’t been done a whole lot, at least not with the same amount of accessibility that eduFire is providing, so it’s pretty new phenomenon. I was thinking about the differences between this and traditional classrooms. Remember your high school days? I decided to compare eduFire with those turbulent times, and I hope you help me out and do the same! Here’s what I came up with: [...]
