Where to Start a Successful Online Teaching Career

The Internet appears and radically change the way we live. One aspect of it is the way we learn and spread our knowledge. Technology innovations have offered us Online teaching platforms- tools that former generations have never dreamt of. It fosters the connections between individuals despite the geographical obstacles. Therefore, education is like we have never seen before.

Let’s say you are a housewife (husband), and you have this new and mind-blowing recipe for an apple pie that you are dying to share it with everyone all over the world for the love of pie, or maybe you are just bored and have nothing to stay occupied. Anyway, teaching it for free is out of the equation since you love money more, but you can not just open a class in your front yard. It is ridiculous!

You are thinking about organizing an online one, but the big question is: “Where to start?!”

Blogging: An Online Teaching Platform for Experts

Blogging could be a great start for your teaching career.

However, make sure to remember that you have a great piece of knowledge to be offered, you write it down, does not mean that you would get attention for it. Mostly because no one will be able to see it, let alone reads it. Building a successful blog takes time and effort, a lot of them. And when you finally embark on this path, you would realize that time and effort are just the tip of the iceberg. What should I write next? Where should I write? How to gain traffic? What is SEO?

On the other hand, if you are already skilled at writing blogs, and you have a killing apple pie recipe, making money would not be any problem. There are various ways from advertising, sponsorship, offer training and consulting service, organizing offline teaching events, or you can promote your offline business too. Next, you may want to check out some social media platforms. The reason behind it is that they are the one huge audience in just one space, so finding learners is as easy as apple pie.

Youtube How-to: An Emerging Online Teaching Platform

Maybe one of the most popular ways nowadays to use social media as a means of teaching is making videos on YouTube.

Apart from relaxation, many people now also see this channel as a place for studying and practicing. Tutorials are a sensation on YouTube. Beauty videos are the most popular. Michelle Phan, for example, has over 1.3 million views.

But now, you are left thinking about how you are going to gain profit from it.

The usual way is through the YouTube Partner Program, which means with every 1000 views, you will get a return of roughly $2-$4 as a share of the income from advertising. Let’s say you have 100 videos each with 5,000 views; then you would already have $1,000-$2,000, which is a decent amount of money. Or, you can seek sponsors by yourself; that way you don’t have to share the advertising income with YouTube. In many ways, making money on YouTube is as same as making it by Blogging; only the tools are different.

Then again, teaching on YouTube have its drawbacks too. Firstly, although your audience is vast, they are not only diversified but also fleeting. Most of them clicking through your uploads are drawn by curiosity rather than the need for enlightenment or knowledge, so if loyal “students” is what you set out to, YouTube might not be your greatest fit. Secondly, no need to say, there would be no such thing called “intellectual property”. The moment you published your tutorial, it becomes a general piece of information, and it could be very likely that the return may never justify your loss.

Last but not least, opening a class needs more than just visual; you need tools that can encourage interactions, share materials, and communicate. Something the next section will provide you with.

eLeaning Platforms

Online teaching platforms are integrated set of interactive online services that provide the teachers with ready-made solutions to strategically design online courses and learners, parents and others involved in education with information, tools and resources to procure them from anywhere. Simply said, these platforms are unbound schools that are facilitated by Technology development.

 These are the basic tools should be provided to create online courses:

• A medium that helps provide syllabus and course summary to show the big picture.
• Applications to create lectures; add videos, audio, and PDF to fulfill course requirements.
• Functions that support formal and informal communication.
• Submit individual and group feedback, rating about courses and teachers.
• Different prices for separate courses.
• Scale to accommodate evolving requirements of e-learning process. Next are some eLearning sites that I think would be suitable for everyone.

Undemy

Undemy is one of the leading universal school aims at bridging the gap between students everywhere to the world’s best instructors anywhere. With more than 30 million students, 100 thousand courses in over 50 languages, Udemy has achieved its goal.

Undemy gives free access for every instructor to create their own classes. However, it makes big money by taking 50% per sale of your course.

Teachable

15 million students and 62 thousand instructors.

It’s clear that Udemy has captured the larger market share, but in the perspective of an instructor, Udemy provides little flexibility, and autonomy because branding and pricing of courses are not the users’ call to make. Teachable capitalized on all such limitations.

Effortless yet beautiful setup and customizable look to create your own captivating school are the things Teachable has to offer.

WizIQ

But if you are aiming at building a virtual classroom not just selling online courses, then WizIQ is the most favorable choice among them all. It gives teachers the perfect set of gadgets to deliver live and on-demand webinars.

In addition to all that, WizIQ is also known for providing a host of plug-in for well-known learning management software such as Moodle, Sakai, etc.

Here are some other online teaching platforms and what they are known for:

• Skillshare  for teaching creative skills
• Eliademy for creating a traditional MOOC
• Academy of Mine for an amazing administrative interface
• Podia for putting up a digital storefront
• Thinkific for building a course from scratch
• Kajabi for marketing a course on autopilot
• Ruzuku for hosting webinars
• Learnworlds for creating an online school

Conclusion:

All in all, there are various Online teaching platforms for you to make a living. Although I have said that: “Online teaching is more than just what you should teach and how good you are at it. It’s also about where, and how to reach out to learners the most efficient way”. I have never stated any of them as the most important factor.

In the end, the value of your knowledge, the logic of your teaching processes, and your students’ learning outcomes are still the most crucial, and decisive elements that define your long-term career growth. However, choosing a good foundation from one of the various platforms above would always be worthy.

Related post: Educational Software and What You Need To Know