the words "social activism" generally connotate a negative paradigm for me. Please don't worry about it as I do not have the authority nor sophistication to be taken seriously. In any case, I tend to trust Sebastian in spite of my sensibilities.
I did pick up on the phrase "earn while they learn". I believe that any real community (vs a false one) must address the realities of all members in a social organism bringing value to the community. There are too many "free" social portals and activities on the internet. There also seems to be an entitlement mentality associated with this free thing also.
While I can accept that there are workable models of profitable companies and organizations on the internet which are predominantly free to many users, there remains a level of paid users which make it sustainable. Personally I am transitioning to a nominally restrictive financial model within my sphere of influence at WIZIQ.
My students will be transitioned from totally free and passive to a higher accountability. They too must bring value to the community. I have already urged most to teach on WIZIQ. Though this is contrary to many teacher's wishes, I adamantly say that all can, should... must teach. I will not burden this posting with the why's and wherefor's but I strongly believe this.
Further, if a student is too timid, shy or brainwashed into thinking that they are not yet ready to teach, they must bring value to the classroom by assisting some teacher within the WIZIQ portal. This goes beyond the minimum social expectation of giving feed back and participating in the various activities available. This means actively assisting a given teacher with preparation, locating materials and/or moderating in a class to facilitate the class' dynamic.
Finally, I believe that every one of us teacher's and students must bring some money into our little economy. It may only be pennies. This sounds very "Capitalistic American" but it is a simple truth. To have a truly healthy organism we must bring in outside energy producing raw materials for our economic engine. This not only is obvious for an economic model, it is also required in a human sense. If you receive something with no cost, or if you provide a service with no return (albeit monetary) there is a problem with our system of "values". Which, by extension, makes me question or morals.
Sebastian is so far ahead of us with his hybrid school it is embarrassing. I am an ethnocentric American. I am upset that such a beautiful technological solution like the Virtual Classroom is by an Indian Company and brains. I am further chagrined that their attempts at building a free and open community learning/teaching portal show the best of American idealism in the practice of open market - open economy that I think they are more "American" than most of my countrymen.
And now Sebastian is so far ahead of me and my ideas that I may never catch up. It is hard for us Americans to be humble but, at least I am better looking than Sebastian and have a winsome smile that I can still leverage to be competitive with his school.
George
PS, we have finally started the Karaoke ESL "ALL_AMERICAN" method of learning English. Look out Sebastian, I am going to steal some of your students! Here is the link:
www.KaraokeESL.blogspot.com