I was introduced to the term “offshoring” in Thomas Friendman’s excellent book, “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century” this summer. I had heard of outsourcing, but not offshoring.
Friedman observes that pretty much anything can be outsourced/offshored except when someone actually touches a client (like a barber) or a product that needs to be serviced (like a plumber.)
Now, amazingly to many I would guess, homework tutoring is being successfully offshored to India. Growing Stars is just one of many companies offering online tutoring services for a fraction of face-to-face tutoring costs. SmarThinking and Tutor.com are others.
In contrast to these commercial tutoring service providers which provide tutoring themselves, TutorNation.com is a networking resource that asks tutors to register for a membership so others can find them for needed tutoring services.
This is all amazing stuff. The world is a’changin. Is the teacher and classroom where your students are learning changing too?
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On this day..
- Map Media to the Common Core with iPads: Classroom 2.0 LIVE on Saturday! – 2013
- iPhone 5, Steve Jobs Reflections, & Amazing (free) Science Videos – 2012
- Publish student stories online with artwork, text and audio narration with StoryKit (free) – 2010
- Share your 5 Photo Stories on Posterous! – 2010
- Praise for Red Eye Removal and Custom Book Ordering in iPhoto ’09 – 2009
- A virtual chat with President Lincoln – 2008
- Explaining the value of microblogging and Twitter for educators – 2008
- Hello from Shanghai! – 2007
- Working behind the great firewall of China – 2007
- Stitching transformative social networking experiences and impactful professional development – 2007