Today I’d like to talk a little about the newest addition to the Praxis Language family — 88Groups. First, though, I’m going to take a short diversion into the world of music remixing (I promise it’s not totally unrelated!).

One of my favorite albums is DJ Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album, an underground remix of Jay-Z’s The Black Album and The Beatles’ The White Album. In the course of a couple of weeks, DJ Danger Mouse laid Jay-Z’s rhymes over The Beatles’ riffs and created something different altogether, neither purely hip hop nor purely rock and roll. Remixing is the core of a DJ’s work, taking tracks from one or more genres and melding them into something that fits his or her audience.

Remixing is at the heart of what we’re doing with 88Groups. We’re providing lessons from ChinesePod and SpanishPod, and giving you the platform on which to meld these lessons into something new, along with tools to create your own lessons and add them to the mix. As a group leader, you create and schedule lessons that fit your audience and goals. As a student, you have the freedom to choose groups that fit your specific learning desires and needs.

We’re very excited about 88Groups, and are eager to see the directions that group leaders and students take. To a large degree, the site’s development and growth will be in response to feedback, and so we’re very interested in hearing what you think. You can either leave a comment on this and future 88Groups posts on the Praxis Language Blog, or e-mail us at 88groups@gmail.com.

I’ll be posting here on the Praxis Language blog every Saturday, and I’ll update the community on the progress we’ve made in making the site better, the ideas that bouncing around internally, and respond to feedback we’ve gotten during the week.

My name is John Biesnecker, and I’m the 88Groups Product Manager here at Praxis Language. I look forward to working with you all to make 88Groups realize its full potential.