Video is also creating new opportunities for tech-savvy teachers to build a business in this struggling economy. This year, after
Matt Dahlberg, 22, a student at Edmonds Community College known as the Jumping Flea, graduates, he hopes he will be able to support himself and his fiancée, a nursing student, mostly by teaching ukulele via Skype.
“I’m constantly turning people down, because I can’t give as many lessons as I’d like to give because I’m still in school,” said Mr. Dahlberg, whose nickname is the literal translation of ukulele, a Hawaiian word.
He has 18 students, ranging in age from 6 to 50-something, including Karen Siebert, 57, a software developer from Cedar Grove, N.J., who discovered Mr. Dahlberg on YouTube, where thousands of people have viewed his videos, including
his cover of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.”
“He’s a baby, but he plays phenomenal,” Ms. Siebert said.