Cool, gonna share this….

Let me try to write something about all 3 points Mike mentions here. Because I think number one is crucial for platforms like eduFire or Myngle.

1) As Chris mentions, who of already successful offline teachers is willing to share a part of his payment with an online platform when it cannot offer services that are so great that you are willing to do so.
Next problem of course who wants to bring his “save” clients into an environment were they might get lost. This is very egoistic of course but still a good reason not to bring those clients online.
Therefore I don’t believe that online platforms will see a growing of their students from this market section unless they offer teachers something interesting that cuts off these two issues.

2) The only case I can imagine for this is to profit from an offer like Myngle had with their learning boost. Bring your students to Myngle, milk the platform (student profits from low prices, teacher gets paid by Myngke) and then go back to your own website or your offline offers. Interesting for teachers and students, investment without any return for the platform.

3) There is not really one free website for teaching right now. If you want to “clone” a platform id the combination of free services that are offered in the internet. But you can cut it down to the two things Chris mentions in his comment. VoIP (Skype, MSN, Yahoo Messenger) and “classroom interaction” Google Docs, dabbleboard.com or for a virtual classroom dimdim.com or WiZiQ.com.
All the rest like own website/blog and an online schedule is icing on the cake and depends on how serious you are about teaching online.

It became very easy in the last couple of month to get free tools to teach online. The problem is of course to get students. As we are talking here about converting offline to online students we assume that the teacher already has some students. To get new students online is a whole different game and I think this is one of the main reasons to go to a platform like eduFire or Myngle. But this is an other blog post .

There are at least three categories that need to be investigated:
1. Teachers who choose not to convert local students to on-line students.
2. Teachers who convert local students to an on-line website that takes a cut of their income.
3. Teachers who convert local students to a free website (with the tools they need) and continue to take the full amount.

I suspect that a great deal could be said about this. Would you agree that groups 2 and 3 need to be better distinguished?

I think (and hope!) that over time more and more people will become used to the idea of webcams, the internet, etc – online education is a very “young” market right now, just because they are the only people who really know how to utilize the net. Things are changing fast, though; Computers are coming out with built in webcams, the Internet is getting faster, etc etc. Great article, very relevant!