Archive for 'Classes'
eduFire and The Fitness Angel Make History: Live, Video Fitness Classes Started Today
Posted on 10. Feb, 2011 by Ryan Busch.
The health & fitness industry is huge and home exercise videos have long been a hot item for people trying to get into shape. But just like books and static video classes only offer a little educational and instructional help–fitness videos have the same drawback. eduFire is changing that–the same way that it changed video into a social learning experience…
Meet Carroll Roberts (aka The Fitness Angel)
Carroll taught a historic class on eduFire today and I wanted to let everyone know about it. Carroll is going to be offering regular personal training, live on video, through eduFire. You can take these classes from anywhere with an internet connection and you actually engage Carroll, ask questions, and get specific fitness answers just as if you were in the same room with him.
Several members of our community attended and we all had a great time. So check this out–meet Carroll and learn more about this fun fitness class.
Way to go Carroll!
Try: Absoglutely with The Fitness Angel
Carroll Roberts teaching a live fitness class on eduFire
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Using eduFire to build information about Industries (ex. my class on Digital Marketing Franchise)
Posted on 20. Jan, 2011 by Ryan Busch.
How might eduFire serve the development of information for different industries?
Digital Marketing Franchise Class
The more time I spend in the tomes of the eduFire community, the more fascinated I become with the variety if educational concepts being employed on the site. This got me thinking–why not use eduFire to educate people about information related to specific industries?
Around the same time as this thought, someone mentioned the concept of a digital marketing franchise. I’ve run my own consulting business and I love digital marketing–but I hadn’t really heard of this concept. So rather than feel like an idiot about my own fields of expertise–I started searching for some basic information about the concept. I quickly found that the majority of the information out there was was all an attempt to sell me a franchise–but it didn’t tell me much about the concept, the risks, the costs, etc…
So…I thought I’d try to put these two ideas together as an example of how eduFire can serve people who want to strengthen the cannon of information about an idea. I’m a neutral third party (I’ve never owned a franchise, I don’t work for franchises)–but I am inquisitive, an educator, and I am passionate about digital marketing. So–here’s a stab at a survey of Digital Marketing Franchise. This class is free of course–the goal being to broaden objective information on an idea.
Of course–this is one example of an idea–but there are so many other people like me who want to know more about whatever they find interesting. Those people could be doing this. Companies could be doing this. For all of the flashy marketing and salesy information out there–there still exists a need to actually examine and evaluate things from a basic level. To ask questions and interact. To explore and review without a bunch of made-up lingo and fast talk. I think that for companies–the people who participate in this sort of engagement make better customers. I think that potential customers appreciate clear messages and and the ability to make decisions based upon concrete ideas.
Know anyone who’d like to try this? Tell them to look at eduFire as a concept for actually communicating with interested people.
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Tis the Season to Teach
Posted on 15. Dec, 2010 by Ryan Busch.
Tis the Season to Teach
Hello eduFire!
On the heels of yesterday’s exciting news about eduFire’s return–we have another exciting announcement.Because you were so patient. Because we love you. Because we want to have a great end of the year…
Teachers will earn 100% of the fees that they charge for classes taught from December 15, 2010 to December 31, 2010.
That’s right–you keep it all–we are even going to pay for the transaction costs that Paypal charges us. This is our gift to you for being the best teachers in the world. There is only one exception–this only applies to classes, not 1:1 sessions. 1:1 session will continue to be done as normal.
What does this mean for you? Here are some thoughts:
- Schedule and teach as many courses as you can!
- Get out and tell as many people as you can to take your courses!
- Charge for courses–free courses are good for marketing, but charging for courses allows us all to keep eduFire working. Consider discounting (rather than free)—you’re getting a bigger percentage, so pass on the love and get more students.
- Promote, Promote, and Promote some more!
All of these things will help you to make more money, gain new students, bring more people to eduFire, and add to our community. All good things that will continue to build your opportunities to become world renowned teachers.
We are still working to get things back on track and we’d like to work closely with each of you as we work to get operations back to 100%, so all we ask is that you coordinate with Marco to ensure that we are only offering one class at a time during this period. This will allow us to better monitor the user experience.
I wish you all happy teaching–now get out there and tell everyone you know (get out your email lists, blogs, twitter accounts, facebook–whatever you have) to come take courses on eduFire before the end of the year. Classes taught on January 1, 2011 are back to normal–so go get ‘em!
Wishing you happy teaching,
Ryan Busch | President | eduFire
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We’re Back! Bug Fixed: Schedule New Classes Now!
Posted on 14. Dec, 2010 by Ryan Busch.
eduFire is working again!
Hello eduFirers!
I have some VERY exciting news to share–one of the major bugs that we’ve experienced in the last few months has been fixed! Teachers and students should now be able to enter classrooms as normal!
I don’t think that there are enough exclamation points available for me to express how excited I am to share this with you!!!
While we still have some other challenges to conquer–this was a MAJOR concern for everyone–but thanks to Scott and Jared (the programmers from eduFire’s original team), it seems that you can all return to using the eduFire platform for your classes. So no more skyping on the side ;)
Please let us know if you run into any issues– we just ran a paid test and everything went smoothly. But, if there are still any “bumps in the road” showing up (an we apologize if that happens)–just make sure to point them out and we’ll look into them.
Again–thank you all for your patience and commitment to keeping eduFire alive during this all–now–get back to teaching!
All my best,
Ryan Busch | President | eduFire
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March Madness!
Posted on 10. Mar, 2009 by Koichi.
On eduFire this month, you can take a group class and get the next one free! All you have to do is take a paid class, and then send your invoice (or paypal receipt) to ryan@edufire.com who will get a coupon back to you in return. You can do this up to two times this month, and coupons can be used on classes of equal or lesser value to the original class you took.
Tutors, be sure to tell your students to take advantage of this so they can pay for one of your classes and get the next one with you for free (you still get paid, of course!).
Students, be sure to take advantage of this offer while it lasts and tell those love-to-learn friends of yours! This is a great opportunity to get twice the learning in for half the price!
Oh, and if you want even more opportunity for free classes, be sure to follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook Page, because we’ll be giving out some over there to help promote the March Madness promotion!
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Jam Today? / When the Education Bubble Finally Pops
Posted on 13. Jan, 2009 by jon.
Jam Today? / When the Education Bubble Finally Pops.
Must-read blog post about the possible impending bubble in education. Plus there’s a plug for eduFire Classes. Each day that goes by I see the opportunity for start-ups to fundamentally change how people around the planet learn. It’s going to be incredibly fun to be a part of that change.
Thanks for the mention James!
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What’s your genius? Teach it on eduFire!
Posted on 11. Jan, 2009 by jon.
We’re T-minus 9 days away from a very historic event. The inauguration of Barack Obama? Nope, the launch of eduFire Classes! OK, so we might be slightly overshadowed that day in the news but nevertheless we’re pretty excited to launch one of the first open platforms for interactive live video learning on the Web. And we’d love to have you be a part of it.
We’re looking for people who are interested in being pioneers in the field of online education to teach the first classes on the platform. The classes are done online using a combination of video chat, voice, presentation sharing and more. Students can attend from anywhere in the world. We’ve been beta testing for a couple of months now and hopefully have worked most of the kinks out. We think you’ll really dig the experience.
Although we’re mostly focused on languages and exam prep here at eduFire, teachers are willing to teach whatever they’d like on our platform (assuming it’s not R-rated :)). Examples of some of the classes that have been run during our beta period include Music Theory, PHP and The Great History of Egypt. You are welcome to run your class for free for students or to set a price for your classes. If you set a price you’ll pocket the vast majority of the class fee (85%).
Here are the only things you’ll need to run a class on eduFire:
An eduFire account – That will take you all of 30 seconds :)
A microphone and headset attached to your computer – This doesn’t have to a fancy set-up. In fact, many of our teachers plug in a pair of iPhone earbuds into their headset jack and it works just fine!
A webcam – This is technically optional but typically makes the experience more life-like for your students.
If you’re interested in being a teacher when eduFire Classes goes live, you can start preparing the items above and drop a line to Koichi at koichi at edufire dot com or Marco at marco at edufire dot com. They’ll answer any additional questions you have and get you all ready to teach your first class.
We’re very excited to launch this new service and would love to see you sharing your genius with the world!
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eduFire Classes Launching Soon – Important Info for Tutors
Posted on 08. Jan, 2009 by jon.
For the last couple of months many of you have been participating in our eduFire Classes Beta. We’ve ran hundreds of classes and have been very happy to hear your feedback (most of which has been quite positive!). We’re happy to announce that we’re just about to move out of the beta period.
eduFire Classes will launch officially on January 20th. I’ve included some additional details in this forum post. A very important thing to mention is that when we move out of the beta period classes that we’re created in beta that have recurring sessions that extend past the 20th will need to be re-created. That’s pretty easy to do using our cloning feature but definitely something we wanted to make sure all of our tutors knew about.
So go check out the forum post and if you have any questions or comments please add a reply in that thread.
We’re really excited to launch eduFire Classes. As far as we’re aware it’ll be one of the first (the first?) open platforms for live interactive video learning on the Web. That’s pretty cool and it’s awesome to have such a great group of people who are excited to be pioneers in online learning!
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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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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). (more…)
