Once upon a time, I was a full-time professional trainer, writing and delivering courses all over the place: at various locations in the United States, Canada, Germany, Jordan. I remember in late 2001, and for the year following, it was a lot harder to get people to fly to our class locations, so I ended up flying to the customer. It was the whole terrorist fear thing, I guess, plus the incredible hassle of flying and dealing with security. Then the costs associated with flying began to increase dramatically and it became cheaper to hire me to come and put on a class on-site, even when paying a premium, than to try to fly all the students to me.
It was about that time that a company I worked with started doing web seminars. And they were OK, I guess, though limited. At that time, online video was not common and a lot fewer people had broadband. The big thing, though, was that they saved money for both the client and for us: we didn't have to travel, and neither did they.
Of course, with broadband being much more widespread than it was then and with almost every computer boasting a webcam, it's easier now. And in case you are wondering where I was headed with this, it's that I am now teaching creative writing classes online, through an online educational platform called eduFire.
EduFire was originally conceived of strictly as a tutoring platform for languages. Toward that end, presently eduFire has instructors in forty-six languages, from languages as commonplace as English and Spanish to the more rare and esoteric Flemish and Nepali. Most of the language instructors are native speakers of the language they teach. Many of those taking language classes are preparing themselves for travel to other countries, and sometimes for business dealings as well.
Also, tutoring preparation for a variety of academic and professional exams is offered: ACT, SAT, TOEFL, GMAT and nine others. If you have taken such exams, you know how challenging they can be, and you can see the value of having someone to personally help you toward passing the exam.
EduFire offers both one-on-one sessions (tutoring) and one-to-many sessions (classes), in virtually all of these areas. The Creative Writing area is a new one, and falls generally within the "English" subject area, even though I'm not really teaching English in the conventional sense. Students and teachers on eduFire are from locations all over the world. In the last Creative Writing class I held, for example, there were students from Russia, England, Costa Rica, France, Italy and of course, the U.S.A. The classes or tutoring sessions are held using the screen, audio and in most cases, video as well. Students interact with the teacher and sometimes with each other during the class as well.
Sometimes classes in the language or area of study you want are not available locally. Or perhaps you don't have a schedule that will let you attend conventional classes in the middle of the day. If you are one of those people who would love to learn a foreign language, prepare for an upcoming exam or improve your creative writing skills, yet are not able to attend face-to-face classes for whatever reason, eduFire is a great place to check out. There is no cost to become a member, and once you are there you can join forums and groups without any cost as well, to get to know the various teachers as well as the other students. Many teachers allow you to take a short free session to get to know the teacher and his/her style of instruction.
Give yourself a nice gift for the New Year--learn something new or improve on what you already know. Is there any better investment than to invest in impoving yourself and broadening your own mind?
