Two alumni are taking APU’s active learning approach online with a free peer-to-peer network that connects experts with people seeking to learn specialized subjects.
Indeguides.com is a location-based website developed by Nathan van der Most, ’13, and Travis Johnson, ’11. Both completed the University’s MBA program.
“As APU grads, Nathan and I understand the power of experiential learning,” Johnson said. “We wanted to develop a site for people with specific interests who could really benefit from working with a local expert.”
Consider someone who wants to learn underwater basket weaving. “That’s a topic that, whenever you hear it mentioned, you know it’s intended to be comical – so obscure that teachers would be few or nonexistent,” Johnson said.
But a person signing into Indeguides would find a free searchable database with the potential to rival sites like YouTube when it comes to locating an expert who offers inexpensive lessons.
“Indeguides is for people who want to learn unique subjects but find their choices limited when it comes to where to take a class or from whom,”
van der Most said. “People with specialized learning interests are really underserved.”
Following a test launch in March, Indeguides.com so far is a bootstrap project that Johnson and van der Most are funding out of pocket. A crowdfunding campaign is under way. The developers say they’ll use funds to add interactive features before a full release in the summer of 2014.
“We hope people will see the benefit of Indeguides and support the site financially and by signing up and telling their friends and family,” Johnson said.
