To replace Skype courses and webinars

Hi, Habr! In the last post, we talked about how the Russian e-learning market looks in general and presented its main players. In this material we will focus on its lower segment - the needs for conducting small trainings, novice teachers, business trainers and tutors. In this niche, the main competitor of Teachbase , unlike the corporate solution chain, is not other boxed and SaaS services, but regular Skype and various services for webinars.

Recently, learning via Skype and webinars has become a popular format used by both private trainers and entire schools. The reasons are clear - for example, skype is widely distributed, provides a fairly high-quality and stable connection, and at the same time a subscription such as Skype Premium is quite inexpensive. Webinar services have taken their place in the e-learning market due to the fact that they provide more functionality than Skype, in the absence of strong competitors until recently in the field of online learning. However, the time for more specialized e-learning solutions has already come. In this post we will talk about what alternative to Skype and webinar services our service provides - Teachbase.ru

Prices and features

Skype Premium - a tariff plan that allows you to make collective video calls - costs 6.99 euros per month or 3.49 euros if you pay for the year ahead - that is, ~ 280 or 140 rubles per month, respectively. In fact, Skype is the most budget option for webinars.
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Popular webinar services are more expensive - for example, the Comdi mentioned in the last review costs from 3 thousand rubles per month. For 25 participants up to 20 tr. for 500. Another popular service, imind.com has a more complex tariff line, but a similar basic monthly tariff for 25 participants will cost 1500 rubles.

For this money, services respectively offer their users an order of magnitude richer functionality for conducting webinars than in Skype - for example, recording webinars, chat rooms, drawing boards, API, etc.

Skype is good as a communication format, webinars are also great for presentations. But this format is still far from the organization of full-fledged online training.

What is the essence of any learning? This is an accompanying student. This is tracking his learning process. And the adjustment of programs or the strengthening of some modules. Repetition and consolidation of the passed information is a necessary element of training.

To build a full-fledged online training, control is necessary, it is necessary to provide the user with the opportunity to independently prepare and work with the material - they are not suitable.

By making such demands, we go beyond the standard capabilities of webinars and, especially Skype. (At this point, the typical objection of a trainer using a familiar webinar usually sounds: “Why do I need this, I conduct sales trainings, the main thing is to talk with the person, tell him about the skills - that's all.”)

This is the difference between Russian education and Western education - people here are accustomed to being educated; in the West, people are used to getting an education - that is, taking a maximum from classes.

I will give an example from the personal experience of the author: when you go to the LSE library in London, there is no free space there - everyone is sitting and studying, trying to get as much knowledge as possible. The school provides knowledge to everyone - but the one who takes them to the maximum will win. Therefore, if you are interested in really high-quality training - keep in mind that the way it is received is important.

This is where the need arises for specialized e-learning solutions.

Educational opportunities Teachbase.ru

We have created a service that specializes specifically in online learning. Consider the opportunities offered by Teachbase.ru:

• Creating and downloading training materials: video, text, audio recordings,
• Building them in the form of a clear and thoughtful course
• Conducting webinars as part of the educational process
• Performance monitoring
• Material Library

Fees on Teachbase.ru depend on the number of students. Our basic one is called “Coach”, and it implies up to 20 users. Its cost is 4200 p. / Month. For the leading major seminars, the “Small Business” tariff will be interesting - 15,000 rubles. for 100 users, or 150 rubles per person.
Let's say you need to create a training course on a certain topic. With Teachbase, you can implement the following script:

1. You are recording several video lessons for groups of different levels: with someone you are going through new libraries, and for some people only an introduction to the basics.
2. Download additional materials for study in the library
3. Create tests on the lessons.
4. You follow the results of these tests and the results of the groups of students: who started, at what stage, what grades.
5. Discuss questions in a webinar format, give new topics and new tasks.

As a result, the created course will look something like this:



At the moment, the correctness of this approach is confirmed by the practice - at the end of the year we had a shock; The number of requests for Teachbase from potential customers is growing in bulk. The number of questions is also. Therefore, in the following articles we will continue to acquaint you with the theory and practice of e-learning in Russia. Thanks for attention (: