Demand-Driven Teaching on Twitter [#teach-me]
Posted on 30. Mar, 2009 by Cap'n Ko in Revolution, Websites
If you haven’t read it yet, there’s a post on this over on the eduFire blog that’s very similar to this one, but I’m going to go into my own opinion a little bit more here on eduPirate.
The #teach-me Twitter revolution has been kicked off today, which I believe will be the first step towards “demand-driven” teaching, where the student asks to be taught something, and it’s easy for teachers to find them (or friends to refer good teachers). The first thing that’s making this all possible is the Internet. If it wasn’t for live video learning sites like eduFire, there would be no way for that Russian Underwater Basket Weaving master to get in contact with that student in Mexico who wants nothing more than to weave baskets and get his hands wet. Secondly, Twitter is becoming a widely used tool, and will be a great jumping off point for this revolution. Here’s how it works.
Someone on Twitter will want to learn something, they’ll post a message up on Twitter asking for it. Just doing that will make their tweet difficult to find. In addition to their message, they’ll add the hashtag #teach-me to show that they want someone to teach them. On top of that, they could go into further depth using more hashtags to specify the subject or topic so people can search for them more easily. Things like #teach-me #Japanese or #teach-me underwater basket weaving will both work, and teachers who are experts in certain fields will be able to keep tabs on certain search results via great Twitter applications like Tweetdeck or Twhirl.
An example of someone using #teach-me
What I think Demand-Driven Teaching will do
I think there are a couple of parts to demand driven teaching. First of all, I think it’s really good for the student when teachers are competing over them. On the other hand, I’m not sure if it’s necessarily great for teachers if it goes really really mainstream. Still, connections that never would have been made before could be made. Someone will put the #teach-me hashtag up, and one of their followers will know someone else, and they’ll be introduced. That’s networking at it’s finest right there. The student gets a great (recommended) teacher, the teacher gets paid, the student learns, and everyone’s happy. I think followers will refer people to good teachers, and the best teachers will have more busienss than they can handle, while those that nobody recommends will be left for the scraps.
This whole concept will only work if there’s enough participation on the student side, though. There will always be teachers looking for students, but if students don’t use the #teach-me tag a lot there will be too much teacher supply and not enough demand, at least in the bigger niches.
What you can do to spread this
I’m going to do my part. There are a few things I want to learn, and I’ll be posting them up on my various twitter accounts, and yep, I’ll be paying people who teach me these things. There are plenty of things I can’t find classes for out there, and hopefully someone will at least be able to refer me to someone who can help. Right now I’m thinking CSS3, Typography, and Twitter marketing. What about you? I look forward to seeing your #teach-me hashtag.
If there’s nothing you want to learn, then just help spread the word by telling people about this hashtag and concept! I have a feeling it’ll be slow growing, but just imagine the potential involved here! See you on Twitter!
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