bp8_2009112_ResearchingandBloggingWeb2Tools-BuddySchool

Buddy School Tries to Address Tutors' Basic Needs

I'm still looking for that ideal platform for online learning, and I thought that perhaps an e-tutoring platform might do the trick. It seems that with all the great, free Learning 2.0 tools gaining popularity, there would be a leading platform for managing all this learning. Even though the black and white clip art Buddy School logo made me think the resource could be a bit old-fashioned, because the site was promoted as a learner management system (which is exactly what we need), I checked it out to see what it could do. 


BuddySchool.com offers web based tools for effective tutoring. It provides a vehicle for educators to advertise their services and to manage all of their students and schedules. These are a significant benefits for tutors looking for connections, and students could also find the tool useful for shopping for the best tutor for them because the rating system makes it relatively easy to compare tutors. With well-categorized lessons, profiles and ratings for educators clearly visible, and even the ability to time lessons, I imagine that the site could make the tutoring much easier.

Buddy School leans heavily on other Web products like Skype and Google chat. Unfortunately, when it comes to the actual learning itself, this tool offered little help during my trial. While the site tutorials touted a new feature, Lesson Plans, which supposedly provide the new ability to share text, video, and other media during classes, I could not get this feature to work, over multiple attempts/hours. It wouldn't allow me to access tools to upload multimedia inside the platform; so for me, that was a bit off-putting. The platform has to be reliable, at a minimum.
 My experience with this site inspired me to think again about a number of things: how important it is for sites like this one to be well integrated with existing online tools, how many learning resources are available online for modern students (which raises the stakes significantly for what happens in the real classroom), and how interesting it could be to hang out a shingle and try to make a living as a professional tutor.  Buddy School isn't for me right now, but I sure learned a thing or two from testing out the site.

Image used by permission, Jupiter Images, Inc.