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The Tutoring side of the system
So you are teacher/tutor?
I am the last person to tell you how underappreciated you are. Education is one of those fields, like nursing, where you are expected to give and give while earning a barely "working wage". Students are getting more "rights" and at some educational institutions it is even getting dangerous to go to work.
So you might have thought about applying your skills and tutoring for additional income. You might be a retired (or currently "between jobs") teacher, someone with a set of skills/degree or a currently working teacher and are thinking of making extra money by tutoring. You hear about people teaching special classes, like math and science, making big bucks but then you picture yourself turning your garage in a classroom. Renovations, desks, whiteboard, parking space for students, charging parents, people not paying, everybody in and out of your house, neighbors complaining and lastly having a fair percentage of your students being obnoxious and unpleasant. If you are a currently working school teacher it even gets worse. Your pool of potential students are very small as you are not allowed to teach students of your own school as it is seen as a conflict of interest. So you are doomed teaching a bunch of snot noses, doing some after school sport activity and resigning yourself to one day retire with the mantra :"I had a good life, I made a difference". This is very depressing, so lets talk about your options.
Skills and opportunities:
You have skills that you might be wasting. Once you get into the "educational year" you think to yourself that next year will be the year, but then you just find yourself in the next year after that. There are so many learners that could benefit from your experience but the complications, as stated above, can be quite paralyzing. Then you commit the next crime... you give your services away for free. Assuming you can teach then what is stopping you?
- Students: You need a steady supply of them to turn your skills into a business. You cannot spend time finding them, they need to find you.
- Classroom:
You could tutor one to two students at your home, or drive to some
well-off client to give one-on-one training. What you need is a
classroom to pack in as many students as possible. Zoning laws,
financial outlay, property upkeep and floor area will limit or stop
you.
- Equipment and material: At minimum you need a whiteboard, cleaning fluid, wipes and many different colored pens.
- Communication: These days Whatsapp makes life easier but you lose your freedom as each student can get hold of you any time your smartphone is on. You need to effectively communicate with this group of students and the admin of that actually costs time and money.
- Finances:
This is the part where most of you will eventually fail. You are
caregivers and cannot say "no!". Your best skills as a teacher will be
the reason you won't make any money at all. You have no frame of
reference to how much others are charging and no infrastructure to
pressure people to pay.
- Students
finding you via the system, in desperate need to get extra tuition.
They will apply to you with their full pedigree and you can accommodate
them according to need and level. You can filter out the trouble
makers. The students can also theoretically be anywhere there is
internet, even oversees.
- Classroom: You don't need a physical classroom or need to disruptively convert your house. You just need a Windows based PC, free software, a Wacom tablet, microphone, optional webcam and broadband internet. It is assumed that you will have a smartphone which is used to organize everything and everybody.
- Equipment:
Your computer now becomes your whiteboard. Your internet connection
puts students at their own desks at their own homes. You can draw in
any color your want.
- Communication:
Your telephone numbers can stay confidential. You only need to
communicate via the server. How about taking a trip to Australia and
still managing a class or two next Thurday afternoon? That is now
possible.
- Finances: Students pay in advance. A student might be able to book a lesson but if he/she did not pay then he/she cannot join the class. We charge a fixed percentage of your lesson price and the rest is yours.
- As the teacher you are master over the class. You can control all aspects of the session, who gets a chance to speak and what is drawn on the whiteboard.
- Master of ceremonies: When the students join you can see who is online and they will be able (at minimum) to chat to you via text. They will never be aware of how many other students are online in the same class. It is up to you to pick the maximum number of students you can handle. The students will use their smartphones to take pictures of the problems and upload them. That happens automatically. The idea is that a student must operate in very much the same way as he/she would in a written examination. So, for math the student will write out the question, do the calculation and upload it. You then receive a bunch of pictures, allocated to the students, and pick which one to discuss. The software allows you to move it to the main whiteboard, where you can quickly edit it (e.g. delete the student's answer). From there on you draw on the whiteboard as you would in the real world. Any changes are sent to all students and they see what your are writing. Your voice is also constantly being sent to all students. If you have a webcam, and it is enabled, a small 64x48 pixel video stream is sent as well. This is not for educational purposes, but just a thumbnail video to give a better emotional connection to the students. You can also use your keyboard and mouse (text, drawing, symbols etc...) plus your smartphone (if you want to quickly take a picture of e.g. the text book).
- Generally
the student should listen, look at the whiteboard and concentrate. But
the student can communicate back. There are three ways. Firstly there
is a chat-type text facility, much like Whatsapp, but only student to
teacher. Secondly the student can take a photo and upload it, with
notification at the master side. Thirdly the student can "put his hand
up" and ask to speak. When allowed the student's voice is then
broadcast to all parties. The student can also point on the whiteboard.
The voice link is broken when the student terminates or control is
taken back by the teacher. The entire session is also recorded for
later replay by the student.
With all of these features you can connect with more students, get paid for your skills, retain your privacy and helping students at the same time. All we require from you is a percentage of your income (to supply the service), small financial outlay (for very useful computer hardware), lower than normal 'physical class' price per lesson (to increase number of students) and a commitment not to teach students at your own school (conflict of interest).
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