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Fri 22 Apr 2022 11:57AM

MyCoolClass Co-op challenges online learning sector, announces community share offer

JH John Hayes Public Seen by 152

MyCoolClass just launched our community share offer and wanted to share the news here.

Please share if you would :) We need as much help as we can get. Thanks!

LONDON – April 22, 2022 – MyCoolClass, a start-up cooperative of independent teachers and tutors, as well as workers and investor members, has announced its new funding endeavor called community shares. MyCoolClass is a democratized learning platform that helps teachers with fair payment for their teaching and tutoring services. MyCoolClass is dedicated to fairness and equity for teachers and educators previously exposed to inequitable, traditional employment parameters. The community shares offer is available beginning April 20, 2022, with share opportunities ending on June 10, 2022.

“MyCoolClass is an online learning platform cooperative owned by independent teachers and tutors, workers and investor members,” said the creator and founder of MyCoolClass, John Hayes. “The education sector has been defined by rampant profiteering in which both teachers and students are subject to platform capitalism. We are building an alternative to venture capital-owned giants that are trying to dominate the online learning sector. Since we founded MyCoolClass in 2020, thousands of teachers have expressed support by signing up for our mailing list. They really want to see MyCoolClass succeed.”

Hayes explained, “Platforms live or die by the teachers who teach on them. After years of poor pay and job insecurity, we believe that teachers are ready for something new, better, and different. MyCoolClass is undertaking a share issue to raise the funds needed to make the cooperative successful and challenge industry giants. Community shares is a common fundraising practice in the UK among cooperative societies.”

MyCoolClass features individualized tutoring and group courses for any age group on almost any subject and attracts high-quality global teachers and students. Teachers are especially engaged and dedicated to the learning platform that offers fair compensation. Fair pay for teachers is not easily available when educators sign employment contracts with corporations.

MyCoolClass has an objective of raising a maximum target of £500,000, with a minimum share subscription per person of £100. Interest of 5 percent will be paid annually after one year of membership. The withdrawal of capital is targeted after three years, and UK investors may be entitled to tax relief of up to 50% on their investments.

Community shares is a user-friendly name for withdrawable, non-transferable share capital: a form of equity uniquely available to cooperative and community benefit societies. Since 2012, over £155m has been raised by over 104,203 people in community shares across the UK.

For more information, watch the MyCoolClass video at https://youtu.be/X-G2ROYPoGQ and website https://mycoolclass.com. To invest, visit https://www.mycoolclass.com/community-shares. 

Contact: John Hayes - [email protected] John Hayes is available for interview and can be a source for stories about online education and the dominance of venture capitalists taking over online teaching and learning. 

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BS

Billy Smith Mon 25 Apr 2022 3:26PM

Also, for a local based in China, take a look at the work done by Naomi Wu.

You can find her on Twitter as @realsexycyborg and her YT channel can be found here,

https://www.youtube.com/c/SexyCyborg

She's got the experience and the tech chops to help. :D

JH

John Hayes Mon 25 Apr 2022 4:17PM

Our platform is fully integrated with multiple platforms and uses individual free accounts, so no cost for us at all as far as how much we scale. Many teachers use third party Zoom integrations as well that let you customize a classroom. We are already running about 30 lessons per day, many at the same, time during peak hours. Our teachers have the option to use any of six platforms for their lessons; Zoom, BBB (open source), Google Meets, Voov (Chinese version of Zoom), Whereby, or our own simple classroom for young kids. Most lessons are one-on-one so the free account works for most teachers. They can also use their own meeting links for Google Meets, and Zoom or Whereby if they have their own free or paid accounts. Voov is free but teachers must create their own account and add the url to the classroom. No cost for us to scale even if we had 10,000 lessons at the same time.

Because many of our students are in China, we do plan on getting a server in Hong Kong to push mainland Chinese traffic through for better speed and user experience.

F

freescholar Mon 25 Apr 2022 9:47PM

Please consider using BigBlueButton to preserve your privacy and host larger meetings without subscribing to
a Zoom account. I host a BBB server where you can take a look and test drive at http://communityBridge.com
There are other hosts available for BBB.

If anyone would like a tour of BigBlueButton, set an appointment with me here: http://communitybridge.com/appointment

We successfully hosted classes for BPS last year for over 1000 students.

In Solidarity,

Micky Metts
Agaric ~ FreeScholar
https://agaric.coop - We are your Cooperative Tech Ally.

[email protected]