The eduFire Blog

Cynthia Garcia is our iPhone winner! (plus more opportunities to win)

Koichi — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:44:14 +0000

Congratulations Cynthia! Out of all the people who have signed up for SuperPass, you were picked at random to receive a $200 Apple gift certificate, just the perfect amount for a fancy new iPhone 3GS! I know everyone at the office is really jealous without our compasses and video recording capabilities. We hope you enjoy it!

But, if you didn’t win something this time there’s still hope. We’ll be giving out another set of prizes on July 4th (easy to remember for everyone in the US. Everyone else? Mark your calendars). Every SuperPass subscriber (including people who subscribed earlier) will be entered in this drawing, so whether you signed up previously or are thinking about it, you can get in on these fabulous prizes.

Win the eduFire Summer Learning Package

Everybody knows what the sun does to your brains (or the snow, if you live in the Southern hemisphere). We definitely want you to keep on learning this summer, so we put together a package worth $100 to help you study. Here’s what you’ll get:

An eduFire t-shirt
$25 LearnOutLoud gift certificate
$50 of 1-on-1 tutoring on eduFire with the tutor of your choice

Check your eduFire inboxes around July 4 to see if you won! Join SuperPass now to be entered (it’s only $1 for your first week, if you want to try it out)!

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Unlimited classes for less than $1 a day

Koichi — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:52:07 +0000

We think that the opportunity to change education is huge. Our ultimate goal, which we pound into ourselves, is to “revolutionize education.” We want to change the way people learn, all over the world, and make it easy and affordable to do so. Today we introduce what we think this is the first step towards achieving that goal: eduFire SuperPass.

We’ve been working on this for a long time now (thank you testers!) and we’re really excited to be able to share this with you today. Unlimited classes for only $29 a month (that’s less than $1 a day!).

World class teachers will become available to anyone anywhere in the world as long as they have an internet connection. Teachers, we believe, will be able to make more money this way too, since they’ll have more students in their classes. More students will have access to the best teachers in the world, to native speakers of the language they want to learn, and to experts in niche subjects unavailable in the places they’re living.

But we need your help. If you want to sign up and try it out for only $1 this first week, then we’d love to hear your feedback on the experience. If you don’t want to sign up, please send me an e-mail telling me what improvements you would need to see before you yourself made the plunge, even if you’d never ever join. Either way, we’d really love to hear your feedback so that we can improve on the overall experience! I appreciate it!

An iPhone 3GS for one lucky subscriber

Apple announced their third generation iPhone, slated to come out on July 19, 2009. We’ll be giving away a $200 Apple gift card to one lucky subscriber on that date. So, if you’d like to get in on the raffle, sign up before then! Of course, the gift card can be used on anything you’d like in the Apple store, and we won’t be paying for the monthly bills that cell phone carriers tend to have with them.

Thank you all so much for your support. We are really looking forward to doing this with you, changing the world one day at a time.

Update: We’ve extended the contest by a few days and will be announcing the winner of the iPhone 3GS on Monday, June 22nd. Good luck!

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World-class UI/UX/Flex/Flash skills? Come change the world with us!

jon — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:46:17 +0000

Hey all. It’s your friendly neighborhood CEO here. We have one of those really cool “change the world” gigs available right now at eduFire. It’s a contract gig and may turn into a full-time position on the eduFire team. The description of what we’re looking for is below. If this *is* you please drop us a line at jobs at edufire dot com with “Change the World Gig” in the title. And if it’s *not* you then we’ll ask you a favor, please pass this on via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. We’d appreciate it!

-Jon

***
***

“Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” -William Butler Yeats

You…

-Possess a world-class design aesthetic and are fanatical about creating products that are a joy for people to use.

-Have web UI/UX experience and (very importantly) have done UI/UX *applications* in Flex/Flash

-Have expertise in ActionScript, AC3 and FlexBuilder IDE (Bonus points for any of the following: Javascript/CSS/HTML/HAML/RoR/Git)

-Have a portfolio of web apps that we can play with

-Are in the Bay Area *or* have experience doing remote work for clients and possess stellar communication skills

Us…

-Venture-backed company with a mission to change education and impact millions of people for the better

-A small but scrappy and extremely hard-working group of individuals passionate about creating value and having a blast at the same time

-Have a revenue-generating websites with thousands of incredibly passionate users (search Twitter for “edufire” or go to http://www.edufire.com/forums to see what people are saying about us)

-Looking to hire someone to help create the visual representation and user experience for the next-generation platform that people all around the world will use to learn

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 ”Change the World Gig” in the subject line to jobs at edufire dot com. Please send us URLs of your work!

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Who doesn’t like Pirate Badges?

Koichi — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:42:42 +0000

Yum, I love badges. Who doesn’t? We’ve added a few badges to reflect some new features (such as articles and documents), but also added a few “challenge badges” as well. The “challenge badges” should be really difficult to attain, and I think the first person to get one of these (500 classes taught or 1000 classes taken) will be rewarded with a special prize. I wonder how long it will take? Six months? A year? Only time will tell.

Also, you may run into some secret badges while bumping around eduFire. Let us know in the forums if you find any!

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Happy Birthday eduFire! Take a Class on Us

Koichi — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:16:20 +0000

Wow. We’re one year old (as in, one year since we came out of beta). Do any of you remember our first baby steps? Well, now it’s time to learn how to run.

We’ve come a really long way in the last year. We added group classes of up to 100 people, introduced the idea board, given you the ability to upload docs / write articles, and so much more. When you look back on it this way, it’s amazing how much has changed!

Take a Class, Get a Class for Free!

To celebrate, we want to give you the opportunity over the next few days to take a group class, then get another one (at equal or lesser value) free. All you have to do is take a class before June 1st (hurry!), send your invoice to koichi@edufire.com, and you’ll get a coupon code to take another class in return!

Thank you all for a wonderful year! We look forward to many more!

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Upload Documents to Increase your Teaching Credibility

Koichi — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:40:29 +0000

Last week, we gave you the ability to write articles, and share your knowledge with the rest of the world. We’ve already seen five articles surpass 1000 views , and two get over 10,000!

In addition to writing your own articles, now you have the ability to upload documents. PDFs, PowerPoints, docs, you name it. And, just like articles, if you have a class scheduled, you can associate it with that class, so all your documents are stored in one place making it easy for the students to access them.

Here are some benefits to uploading your documents.

Ability to associate a document with a class, so your students can read up and prepare for your classes.
Google Search traffic. This means people will find your documents via Google, thus finding you as well.
Builds Credibility: A teacher with good content coming from their account means they’re a good teacher as well. Just one more thing teachers can use to stand out from the crowd.

If you’ve taught any classes in the past, and have a PowerPoint / PDF / anything you want to upload, here’s the link. First document to hit 1,000 views gets an eduFire T-shirt! :)

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We need an intern (or two… or three)

Koichi — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:28:11 +0000

eduFire is looking to get some summer interns. Interns will get everyone coffee, do push ups, and… wait, not quite. Here’s really why you should be an intern here:

#1 – Work alongside some sharp people and learn a *ton*. Trust me on this one, you’ll probably receive an MBA’s worth of education in a single summer (and this is coming from someone who received an MBA from a Top 10 school).

#2 – A great name on your resume. We’re funded by a Sand Hill Road VC so you’ll have a good name to add to your resume. Can’t hurt in this economy!

#3 – Super convenient! We’re located in SOMA in SF, incredibly close to Cal-Train and a # of bus lines and walking distance from BART. A great commute for anyone in the Bay Area.

#4 – Free eduFire classes, tutoring sessions, etc. If you’re looking to learn a language, prep for an exam, etc. we’ll hook you up with vouchers to take free classes and tutoring sessions on our site. Not a bad perk!!

#5 – Meaningful work. If you’ve read our blog you know that we’re about trying to change education for the better. What could be a better use of your time between school years than trying to make the education system itself a little bit (or a lot!) better?

We’re mostly looking for people who are local (San Francisco) although we might hire an exceptional candidate who is remote. We’re looking for all sorts of backgrounds but the ideal for us would be people with experience in marketing (especially social media) and customer experience (especially usability). If you feel you might fit the bill shoot an email and a resume to koichi@edufire.com and title it “eduFire Summer Internship”.

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Use eduFire Articles to Find Students, Gain Credibility

Koichi — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:24:37 +0000

eduFire has released a new feature for teachers (and students, should they want to use it) called “Articles,” which is part of a new “content” category that will have other features in the future. Actually, articles has been up for a few weeks now (how many of you came across it? I know our awesome Tagalog tutor Katherine noticed it).

When you write a quality article, it does a lot of good things for you, the teacher. It’s just another way to promote yourself and help students to find you! Let me list some of my favorite things:

Gain Credibility: If you write good stuff, people will notice! The more good articles you have, the more a potential student might trust you! People will read them and say “Wow, this teacher is one smart frood! I want to take lessons from this person.”
Attract Students: When you write an article, it becomes available all over the web. People from outside of eduFire can find those articles when they’re searching on Google, using StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. If you wrote an amazing article, who knows how many people will view it and then maybe even book a lesson with you! Check out this article: “Unconventional Ways to ACE any job interview.” It has over 25,000 views already!
Show the World Who You Are: By writing articles, you’re giving insight into the way you think, the type of person you are, and so much more. These are all things that are hard to do in your profile alone. For example, if I looked at this article, I’d know that Stephen is an inspiring and positive guy! It would be more difficult to gather that just from the profile itself.
Promote Your Classes: When you write an article, you have the option to associate your article with one of your upcoming group classes. The article will show up in your class listing, and there will be a link to your class from your article as well (so all the people finding it from other places can find your class as well). This is also a great way to add some information, back story, and so on to your class, which you can assign to the people taking it.

Since we’ve (officially) just released this feature today, we’ll be announcing a contest to go along with it very soon. All articles written before the contest is announced will automatically be entered, of course, so feel free to get your thinking caps on. Aw heck, I’ll tell you what the contest is so you faithful blog readers can get a head start. All of you will be nominating your favorite language, test-prep, and “other” articles in a few weeks, then those will be voted on by the community (as well) to see who’s top dog. Prizes are pretty awesome, totaling to around $75 in value for each winner. To join in, all you have to do is write an article!

I’m really looking forward to reading your articles – there have already been a lot of really good ones that I’ve enjoyed so far. The eduFire community is full of really really really smart people, and I’m excited that you now have another way to share your knowledge with the rest of the world!

[image source]

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Thank You for Helping us Donate $700 to DonorsChoose!

Koichi — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:30:56 +0000

Last week, we had a Retweet charity that supported a classroom from DonorsChoose, where every retweet you made on Twitter garnered $3 up to $300. A bit THANK YOU to all of you. We also got some extra support from DonorsChoose (matched up to $200) Tofugu ($100) and Jon Bischke ($100), bringing the grand total up to $700! Because the classroom doesn’t need this much money, we’ll be choosing another classroom to donate to in the coming days. If you have any recommendations for a classroom (found on DonorsChoose) please let us know in the comments down below! We want to find one that supports technology in the classroom, but also really really helps out some kids.

Thank you again for your 220+ retweets to help these children! You have changed their lives for the better, and we’re really proud to be a part of it!

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Tweeting for Literacy – How YOUR Tweets can change lives

Koichi — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:47:26 +0000

All day today, eduFire will be donating $3 per retweet (don’t know what a retweet is? Check out this free class on Twitter going on today!) to an ELL classroom in Oklahoma, up to $300. Click on the image below to get to the original Tweet so you can retweet it.

Please help these kids out! They are second-graders who don’t speak English at home, and that’s affecting their ability to learn how to read. By making this donation, we can help them learn using a bit of technology (we love technology!). All it takes is a simple retweet, nothing more, nothing less! We really love to support education in all shapes and sizes, so your help will be greatly appreciated, and directly help real people!

Now, this classroom actually needs $456 to reach their goal, so we want to encourage you to get involved too, if you are able! We’d like to ask any and all of you, who are reading this, to help out education and join our tweeting campaign! Just add your name on to the original tweet, and ask your followers to retweet it. We’ll be updating (below) whenever somebody else joins in. Be sure to tell us when you do, so we can write something so more people know!

If and when we do exceed $456, or if too many people donate to this cause before we get the money to them (probably tonight or tomorrow), we’ll pick another classroom to help, via this wonderful website, donorschoose.org.

So what are you waiting for! Open up your Twitter accounts and tweet tweet tweet away!

Update 1:00pm PDT: @jonbischke will donate another $3 per retweet up to $150! Go Retweet his Tweet!

Update 1:23pm PDT: @tofugu will donate another $3 per retweet up to $100! Go Retweet his Tweet!

Update 6:20pm PDT: Just received word that have another $200 match. I need to leave it anonymous for now until I know for sure that I can mention it here. Cool! :)

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