Can a teacher drive the technology?

Can a teacher drive the technology? I think yes.

We at WiZiQ.com are making a set of features which most of the teachers are comfortable with? For example, we are building a platform where a teacher can use the latest technology like a virtual classroom to teach his students. Apart from it, to empower the teacher community to get a whole lot of direct opportunities, we are building a teacher directory, of course search-able on Google and also any student can find a teacher in his own area!

What the teachers can use now:

1. A teaching directory
2. The online virtual classroom (may be some training is required to some less tech savvy teachers)
3. A Google searchable profile
4. Content and
5. Optionally, collect payments online

So, I think an online teacher can explore these basic things and use his potential the way he/she wants to. But what’s next? What are the rest of the things a teacher would want to have and how the online technology takes a new turn. The idea here is to share, collaborate, distribute and earn.

So where would you like to go and how should we improve the technology?

Thanks.
Maneet
WiZiQ.com

Tags: Online, Teachers, Technology, education

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Permalink Reply by Harman Singh on May 28, 2007 at 11:55pm

Skip,

I am the founder of WiZiQ. Maneet mentioned about your post.
We hope WiZiQ helps remove barriers in education and the Internet gives us that opportunity. Our business model is such that it is free for any teacher to use WiZiQ with any number of students (as in your case) and we earn when a teacher is earning through WiZiQ.
Now answering your particular question about earning even when someone is teaching for free. We believe that on WiZiQ, once there are enough teachers and students (even teaching for free), paid services would start automatically. E.g. while you are teaching your students for free, you might get a request for a certain topic from someone in the world. Then you might want to charge that person....that is when we would earn too. Further we believe that the cost of acquiring a user on the Internet is going to increase than servicing that user (i.e. hosting the servers, building the software etc.).
Assuming that there would be millions of users using WiZiQ and only a handful of them paying, we can be a profitable business.
Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
Harman

Please feel free to contact me on my personal e-mail: harman(at)authorgen(dot)com.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. Parisi on May 29, 2007 at 9:13am

I went to your site and registered. Most colleges offer an online component this may be a way to do more with online courses already being offered. I'm not sure. I did however, feel that an online video tutorial would benefit your site. I would have it automatically start when the page loads. I use to create interfaces and still do websites and felt the site is a little confusing and not very user friendly. Once all the features are mastered I'm sure it's probably easy to use. This is a new paradigm for classroom teachers and most are not computer savy. I use to do teacher training so I know first hand. This is also coming from a CDROM developer, web designer and computer teacher.

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Permalink Reply by Maneet S. Khurana on May 29, 2007 at 9:54am

Frank,

We definitely have the video sessions as well. One of the teachers registered with us took a PUBLIC VIDEO session last week. The session is titled "Home School Primer on College Admission". This session is available in the Archivesunder public sessions listing and you can view the recording of this session any time.

In the current implementation, you will have to contact us in case you want to turn the video on for your sessions but soon through a "Settings" interface on the site, you can set the preferences for your sessions yourself (Audio/Video etc).

Usability of the site is the top most concern and your suggestions would benefit us.

There are a lot of new features that you will soon see on the site apart from enhanced usability.

Thanks,
Maneet