Hi Tutors! I have a very important question to ask you…..

#How can we make eduFire better for you???

I’m not asking for feature requests so much. We have a bunch of them on our Ideas Board (thanks to all of you who’ve posted there by the way!) and we’re going to get to as many of those as we can as quickly as we can. Rather I’m referring to what BIG things we can do to make your eduFire experience ridiculously good. You know, the kind of stuff that you tell everyone you know about.

Based on the early feedback that I’ve received the main thing is to bring more students to the site. With gas prices approaching $5/gallon here in the U.S. many people say “I’d love to teach on eduFire all day if I could.” So we’re working on that (and encourage you to market your profile as well so more people here about eduFire and sign up with you as a tutor).

So what else can we do?

I want to build a service online that’s all about making the lives of teachers/tutors better. I want to make it so that those of you who wish can stay at home with your families, teach people from all around the world and make a healthy living doing so. We have a great team that’s ready to do all we can to make this happen. We’re just asking for your help.

In the words of Jerry Maguire, “Help me help you.” Let us know what would make your time here the best ever. I’m all ears.

I would love to see the site marketed for more than languages…as a certified teacher I can teach/tutor in many other academic areas as well.

That’s a great suggestion Tracy. What specifically would you like to see that you think would work well over the eduFire platform?

Yup, I think it would be wonderful to be able to teach in many areas! I have a degree in computer science, and I can teach almost all courses in math, for example, as well as in computer engineering and programming. It would be wonderful to have areas like that in sections different from “other” :-)
Awesome idea, Tracy!

Targeting potential students is a definite. People that buy language books on Amazon, people that look up hotels on Trip advisor… though I’m sure such marketing is already in the pipeline.

Bigger picture wise? Additional tools to teach. (Again I know some are already in the pipeline too). Whether it’s a whiteboard or something of that nature. Like most tutors I plan and prepare each lesson and right now I need to copy and paste into the eduFire chat window but lose formatting etc. Being able to upload a doc that I can edit simultaneously with my student would save heaps of time. (Like Google Documents). Both tutor and student then has a copy of each lesson.

So in summary, targeting students (we must all remember this is a 2 way street, as tutors we need to market ourselves too) and tools to teach them with. :)

Thanks guys!

@Yuriy – Great to hear. From talking to other tutors is seems like many of you can teach other things in addition to languages. Expanding out is definitely something we’re thinking about a lot these days. :)

@Marco – Great suggestion as well. More marketing and tools are definitely on the way. And you’re right, the way we’ve set it up, marketing is a two-way street. While many students will find tutors through eduFire I think the tutors on eduFire who will do the best are the ones who are out there marketing themselves and their eduFire profiles as well.

Keep the suggestions coming please!!!

Hi, Jon,
I think that most tutors want a way to enter text with a drag and drop feature or a way to link their students with links to this text as well as videos, music, etc.

Another idea would be to add a question, such as, “In which subject(s) would you like to find a tutor?”… and then have tutors listed or make the “Other” category listed under this question instead of just having the “other” category listed on each tutor’s page, so students can find what they need faster.

Could we also have a central place where we could have business cards printed online with the Edufire Logo? Then I could pass those out to people locally. We could also email them as an attachment. My brain works like the battery bunny..it just keeps on workin’!

You guys have been adding wonderful features to the site, though. It continues to impress me!

Definitely need better syndication. Could use Craigslist for example to offer the services of the entire site. RSS is also missing on the forums, and also for Tutor profiles it could be interesting to include a tutor blog that could be syndicated as well. Of course, tutors could also set up their own blogs using Wordpress or Blogger and simply link them to here, which would be a benefit to blog and Edufire. The site is pretty comprehensive, but we need to be leveraging community effects better to reach more potential students and tutors. I also agree that there are other topics that could be offered by many tutors here including myself. I am a professional commuicator and community evangelist for the enterprise for example. Skills and knowledge that could be very valuable for many professionals out there.

Hi Jon and fellow tutors: I have 2 suggestions/requests I feel strongly about.

1) I would like to see “student ratings” and more info on the student with reasons for study(saw similar suggestions in the Ideas section, too). Not so much ratings per se, but how many sessions they’ve requested, and how many they’ve actually taken. I’d like to see their previous tutor’s feedback as well. If it’s a student that has many “no-shows”, I may opt out from taking on that student, and save a lot of time, aggravation, and money(for baby-sitting during my scheduled lesson)
2) I suggest a deposit system. When students request a session (or better when the lesson time is set from both parties), they pay a deposit to Edufire for the full amount of that specific tutor’s fee. After the lesson is complete, Edufire pays the tutor. If the student is a no-show, the tutor gets a portion of the fee (say 30% for waiting online for 20 min.) If the tutor is a no-show, the student gets the money back or can have it on paypal for future use. I feel uncomfortable taking on a session request before I get paid for the previous lesson, and I have been burnt for scheduling classes when the student is a no-show, leaving me high & dry. Any thoughts?
Wren Fritsky (Japanese)

Wren, awesome!

I completely agree with both suggestions!

I think that teachers and students should be able to decide wether they want to charge or not . Why can’t one study German with a tutor and in exchange teach the tutor French or English ,if you get what I mean . I hope someone agrees with me out there …

Commenting on Sara’s post:
I don’t see any problem students and teachers wanting to charge or not, or barter instead- “outside” of Edufire.
I see value in Edufire, so I work on and through it. You have to remember, Edufire is a business, not a non-profit.
Wren

It would be so helpful to have links to language sites and dictionaries to access as a student or a tutor assigning practice. I still, really, really, really want the ability to show a slideshow or movie to a student in the language they are studying. I think this is very essential to the EDUFIRE experience. Perhaps more games involving language would also be a wish of mine. We could have tennis, baseball, etc. Clubs could as well be started, where people who have certain interests could share their knowledge and ideas. They would have the chance to practice their language of choice with translation of course. When a student is captivated by what interests them, they will learn much more easily and quickly.

I would be happy to teach non-language topics as well. Can’t we just have a try and add “Mathematics” or “Chemistry” to the list of “languages”?

As I mentioned in another topic…an anonymous feedback with specific suggestions? Of course anonymity is hard when feedback comes in after a sigle session, but I for one am open to ways I need to improve and don’t take offense-it’s how I become a better teacher and how anyone improves in their vocation.

I think that one of the things that I would like is to be able to do is to enter into the classroom before the student in order to prepare for the lesson.. especially since just as Marco mentioned, we are not able to upload files yet and copying and pasting info and/or typing info takes so long… Of course I know that ya’ll are working hard to build a better platform with better access to more advanced teaching tools and I think that is awesome ….I cant wait :) …. May I also mention that availability to surf the web within the classroom would be a plus ….allowing us to access you tube … online dictionaries etc… not sure how they do it but the Korean company that I also tutor on has this feature and it is awesome :) Just Sayin’ ;) But I really do love it here .. It has a nice homelike feel :)

I’m not sure if it has already been suggested: There should be an “advance” notice/time limit between acceptance of session times and the actual session time.

For instance, I just had a student accept a session time/date RIGHT as it is set to begin. I find this unacceptable. We should require at least a couple hours notice, so we are more prepared and expecting the session.

Just my two cents.

I’m new to this site, so bare with me. No Shows ought not be a problem. EDUFIRE needs to adopt a policy that if a student is enrolled in a class at the time the class begins, that student is charged for the class. If it is clear that a class will meet for 10 sessions, the student needs to be charged for the entire ten sessions. It would be up to the students to show up and participate.
My time is valuable and I expect to be compensated for it. In brick schools students pay tuition and teachers are paid to teach the students in the room.
Tuition fees need to be assessed when the student enrolls regardless of whether or not they choose to attend.

All of Wren’s suggestions plus:

1) Make it easier for “other” subjects. Especially where 1×1 sessions are not the norm.

2) Allow a flat fee to use your resources- similar to GetAFreelancers “featured” feature (http://www.getafreelancer.com/info/featured.html). I would like to use the excellent white board system here for seminars but Edufire would get no cut.

3) Multi-layered pricing. For example; $x for one class but a y% discount if they pay for #z classes.

Marketing???
Why not targetting the big sharks out there….like yahoo, google, e-news. A lot of students out there use different portals of communication, lot of engines to take advantage of. Put your brand on the net and on local papers in different parts of the world.

And by the way, I am a surpass subscriber and I attended three classes with surpass acct. But when I checked my dashboard, how come I have 48 classes all in all? They are posted according to the time the tutor will be teaching that same class again…as if my classes is being multiplied nth time.

Hey Raquel,

Thanks for your ideas! For the classes listed on your profile, that will get better when we do the profile redesign. I agree it’s pretty ugly and lame right now, especially if you take a lot of classes!

For marketing…. I suppose it depends on where you look, but I have a feeling you’ll see us more and more as time goes by.

Hi guys,

Has anyone considered having the site translated into other languages? I feel this would be particularly helpful for beginners. I wanted to show my ESL students the web site but they find it particularly confusing as they have only very basic skills in the language.

Thanks, Mo

Yep, definitely been talking about it a lot. I’d love to see the site (and I know many others as well) in something besides English.

i would like edufire pay tutor using other methods than paypal, for example direct deposit, international money transfer, or western union, or other methods since paypal is not used in many countries specially the middle east. if you could do that, i would really appreciate it.

@ Maureen As Koichi said, we have been asking for translating the website, even ourselves, for a long time now and i have also posted this idea on the “Idea Board”.

Please, vote here below:

http://edufire.com/ideas/617

All the best for your teaching and learning here and I look forward to meeting you in class soon!

Cheers:-)

Katia
Native French & Italian teacher and translator
Amateur astrologer (check my astroclasses in English!)