I like that Jacquie and you’re right about the emergency.

As another idea ….. as I’m all for keeping things simple. What if we don’t have a payment at registration and leave it like it is now….. (well how it will be soon that everything will be pre-pay) no, wait. I’m serious.

What if, instead of that, teachers have a screen that they can logon to and are able to see in real time who has paid or not?

A serious student is going to pay anyway right? So we’re not creating a mass of students that are suddenly going to pay because it becomes payment at registration. We still have the chance they can pull out and refund within the required time limit. So the serious students are going to pay and attend regardless.

I’ve been reading this and have been getting confused with how complex it’s becoming and that there are some differences of opinion on teacher payment frequencies. It’s ok for us, we’re in the middle of it. But imagine trying to explain it to a new teacher (and student), never experienced online teaching before and they aren’t too good at English.

Don’t know, the problem I can see is that you rightly don’t want to waste your time hosting a class where nobody attends. Well, it doesn’t matter what the payment system is, that just makes it easier for us to see nobody has registered for our class (or lots have!). If we were able to logon to like a teacher payment screen and instantly see who has paid and who hasn’t that’d be the same? Or not?

@Dave…. I wasn’t referring to students, I was referring to people (teachers) in this thread who seem to be against the idea of asking for money upon registration…. as for the students, since we hardly see any of them in any of those discussions, it’s hard to pay attention to what is in their minds…. ;)

@Marco I think that’s a great idea. I think a lot of people were looking for that at the beginning until this ballooned into a big to-do that didn’t need to go crazy.

The reluctance of teachers is because it might cause students to be reluctant to buy our services. The reluctance of one goes hand-in-hand with the reluctance of another. They can not be separated.

I say “reluctance” because I never got the feeling that anybody was dead-set against the idea of asking for money upfront. I do hear calls for adequate controls such as having edufire hold the funds.

Students are not alien beings. We can anticipate some of their thoughts and it would be wrong to not even try. True, we are only anticipating the thoughts of another which is not 100% accurate, but that shouldn’t be an excuse to not think at all.

I believe I said in another thread to stop and think before we take action. Be careful what you wish ….

Like Sean, I totally agree with Marco’s suggestion, it keeps things simple for everyone plus gives teachers additional information on their classes. We need something that is good for students, teachers and eduFire. If we make it overly complicated it doesn’t benefit anyone.

@Marco @Sean @Debbie – Couldn’t agree more! Simple is better.

I really don’t require pre payment from my students. I haven’t had an issue with that. I just want to get paid every week as it is now. Once a month is unacceptable for me at this time. Its bad enough with having superpass being paid once a month

So if it was left as it is now. And you could access a page where you could see who has and hasn’t paid that would help?

I have no idea how much this would take to create, and I’m not the one creating it …. just thinking our loud and trying to keep it simple.

I think it is clear that we tutors would prefer the simplest solution to the problem that prompted this thread. I, myself, like the idea of the invoice page.

However, if that doesn’t work then I put my vote in for payment every 2 weeks. Monthly is undesirable but it isn’t unacceptable.

If edufire decides to ask for money at registration time I ask that they first look into the potential consequences and “bumps in the road”.

@Marco. Yes, that would help. As long as you don’t mess around with teacher payments. I’m concerned about that…..VERY CONCERNED. You did it before without warning…..and that really screwed me for a while

Thanks for the feedback, both of you.

I understand the concerns of all fellow tutors here and I believe have access a page where you could see some time before the class or session starts who has paid would help.

However, being paid once a month is NOT ACCEPTABLE for me neither, and it’s annoying with superpass too. I like to be paid weekly because it makes it easier to record and track payments.

Thank you for having asked our opinion first;-)

Hi Marco, isn’t your idea what I have been asking all along right from the beginning of this thread? I never said students should be obliged to pay in advance ( I just followed the suggestions) , but just that teachers should know before entering a class who paid and who didn’t.

Glad we finally getting there!

I agree on your idea, Marco about making a teacher screen to see who has paid or not before the session or the paid class starts for enough time like 12 hours at least. I agree on the other teachers’ opinion about making the payment every week too. Thanks for the good solution for this problem.

Hey Monica, I wasn’t claiming it as “my” idea. Sorry if you thought I was. I’m just trying to find a solution and one that is simple. There are so many ideas it’s difficult to keep track. I’m going to call it ’Monica’s idea’ from now on. :)

I’ll discuss it with the team. As I said, I have no idea about the technical aspects of it and imagine it isn’t an easy task.

Thanks for the feedback too Gihan.

Sorry Marco, I did not mean you were claiming it was your idea and I did not mean to sound petty, I was just trying to establish that finally everyone understood what i was asking when I started this thread. I am happy we are getting somewhere, it was very frustating lately to turn up at lessons not knowing who was going to be in the classes!

thanks

No need to apologise Monica :)

We all have the same objective.

Hey guys. Just wanted to chime in here and say a couple of things. First of all, all of this feedback is great. We’re on largely uncharted territory here and so it’s awesome to see all of the suggestions for what each of you think is best. We definitely incorporate that heavily into our decisions.

Second, when the site does switch over to entirely pre-pay on July 15th we will be operating the same as we do now, just with no option to pay after your class. While payment at registration is something we’ve discussed, there are pros and cons of doing it that way. While we may go that direction in the future it won’t be that way out of the gate.

Thanks and I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

I was trying to understand the thread,again I spend a lot on the ideas all gave,
So Marco as you said" teachers have a screen that they can logon to and are able to see in real time who has paid or not?"

So is it for only private sessions or all type of classes going to be held?

Hey Susmita – that’s only an idea, it doesn’t exist anywhere.

I have a question for you Marco about the invoicing page idea. If the teacher sees that the student hasn’t paid before the lesson, and I assume that the teacher would have to wait for 2 hours prior to the lesson commencing, then can the teacher cancel the lesson without loosing points or accruing other negative feedbacks to their profile? Whilst for me this would be some step towards solving the problem I’m having with booked 1:1 no-shows, it would not solve the problem of the time I put in preparing and tailoring 1:1 lessons to each student’s needs, as I would definitely do this well in advance of 2 hours prior to the lesson beginning.

Also, one other thought, perhaps the “request tutoring” button is slightly misleading in some way. Perhaps when students click this button they think they are entering into a discussion about what kind of tutoring they are looking for, rather than thinking they are actually booking a session. Maybe if it said “book lesson” it would make the act of what they are actually doing a bit clearer. It’s just a thought, and I hope I have expressed myself clearly enough….:-)

I think the invoicing page could be a great idea, especially when you don’t know a student yet.

@Judith I had much more no-shows on mynlge form new students than here on edufire and I somehow liked more here than there. Myngle has this annoying thing of people from the stuff contacting teachers several times personally to check what they are doing and how. I never liked it, I’m paying for a service and I provide my services to people through you, so it’s not a good idea to treat me as if you were my ‘boss’.

I work much better on a platform like edufire….everyone has their preferences, but I would never go on myngle saying I prefer edufire, I like the fact that they are different in many ways.

I totally agree with Marged …. as usual:D

EduFire is a young platform and innovative service, so there’s room for improvement.

However, I really like edufire – which is by far my favourite online teaching & learning platform- for many reasons:

- nice and helpful staff ( BTW thanks to Marco, Debbie, Koichi and Ryan amongst other)

- room for personal initiative and a lot of freedom/debate/exchange compared to any other similar platform

- very warm and friendly community (students and fellow tutors alike)

- I love the virtual classroom which is good and very easy to use unlike Myngle’s (even though I have experienced some sound problems as anyone here)

- I also like to attend classes here and I enjoy the possibility to share knowledge because any tutor here is an expert in his/her own area of expertise but need tutoring on other areas

I.E. I am an astrologer and also a qualifed French & Italian tutor & translator but I need to learn a lot about marketing and many other subjets/languages)

This is my experience, what about yours?

Katia

@Holly, you’re right. Maybe that button “request tutoring” is tricky for most new students here. So it’s much better to change it to “request a session” or as you said “book a lesson” to be clearer for all the students here.
@Marged and Katia, I agree with you Edufire is much better than Myngle. I didn’t like Myngle at all, so I left it for a long time. Edufire is better than many educational websites. I always enjoy teaching and learning here. And the community here is so warm and helpful. I love being here so much. I thank Allah then Michelle Seher for telling me about this great site really.

I agree with Both Holly and Gihan, it would be much better if the booking process button said “book lesson”, maybe even, " book lesson now “.
It would make the act of what they are actually doing ‘a considered decision’ to go into a binding contract with the teacher for a lesson! Perhaps [as has been discussed previously] there should also be a system whereby if the student for ‘legitimate reasons’ (what are legitimate? ) cannot make it to the lesson ( time frame for cancellation? ) they can apply for a credit for the lesson, and re-book at a later date. The crediting process i feel should really be up to the teacher. As to whether or not the teacher wishes to credit the student for a no-show. Most teachers would probably credit their students, as it would benefit their on-going teaching relationship and give them good credibility amongst the Edufire community. But, if you get a student who is "taking the mickey”, and is not serious, by simply refusing his or her application for a credited lesson, sends a clear message that this is not tolerated.
[I’m not sure of the time details here, as in – how long before a lesson a student can cancel and apply for a credit, but, a reasonable time frame (perhaps not on hour before the lesson) would suffice.]
But getting back to the topic at hand, a ‘BOOK LESSON NOW’ button, makes it much clearer for the student (to take the act of booking seriously) and for the teacher (to know the student who books is serious), and this can only better for all concerned.