We live in exciting times. About 7 years ago (in the days of dialup internet) I gave a talk at a conference on teaching Slavonic languages and predicted that once broadband is more readily available, teaching languages online will be revolutionized because we will be able to exchange voice and eventually video which are essential to language learning. And this has been possible for about two years now thanks to Skype and videosharing services like YouTube. But what I did not and could not predict is the much more powerful draw of social networking that not only presents people with information but allows them to form communities of practice and possibly learning around it. And Edufire seems to bring the two together. At its core are simple one-on-one encounters between language teachers and language learners but there are also many Web2.0 features available such as displays of most active teachers or learners or most popular languages. The services is still a bit barebones (and it's not exactly the only one around Huitalk is my other favorite) but they take their community building together. Within 24 hours of signing up I had a request for a welcome lesson from one of the resident teachers to introduce me to the system, answer my questions and so on. It seems these guys are taking their project seriously. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

eduFire :: Content :: Faq What is eduFire?
eduFire is a community of people passionate about teaching and learning languages. As a student you find outstanding language tutors from all around the world and learn from them from the comfort of your home. As a teacher you'll be able to connect with students and can teach them without having to travel.

Education Revolution Very early on with eduFire we set the intention to only grapple with extremely meaningful problems. We set out to do something very challenging and yet very meaningful: Revolutionize education. There are a million other things we could have done and to be honest a lot of roads that would be have been “easier” depending on how you define success (be it raising money, getting acquired, etc.). However, that didn’t have much appeal to us. Instead we want to take a really big swing and try to shake an industry to its core in the hopes that something much better would emerge on the other end. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do with eduFire.