The Death of Teaching Online
649 words |
People are now rushing to teach online. They dream of making money while they sleep, because their internet system teaches hordes of baby boomers who will happily pay educators and trainors a monthly subscription fee. Sounds wonderful, right?
Well, don't look now but some parts of the online classes market are dying even before they get started. Are you making these e-teaching mistakes?
1. Slow e-mail support. A key component of a learning environment is teacher-student feedback. In a virtual learning environment (VLE), you have access to an online forum. Yet people will still naturally gravitate towards e-mail. Sadly, some of the e-training services I've tried are slower than a "turtle with an ingrown nail" when responding to e-mails.
2. Slow roll-out of material. If you are going to gradually publish your course online, it will help if your site offers around two month's worth of information right from the start. Even one month's worth will be appreciated. This will help you retain your students or subscribers, because they won't feel that their money is sleeping in your mutual fund while you are still "developing" the course.
3. Lack of substance. Are you heavily relying on flashy doodads or the sizzle factor? Students will look for the meat of your course. If you prefer to offer a lot of material in multimedia form (audio / video), back it up with enough text. Your students will appreciate the transcripts.
Remember when you were in school and the teacher would drone on and on during some boring lecture? You would sometimes space out, assured that your seatmate will have notes that you can borrow.
In a VLE, where is your seatmate? And what notes can you rely on after a lengthy MP3 plays in the background? How can students just sit there and listen to a long audio file and not even open another browser window?
4. Web access is subject to too many distractions. Do you offer your courses in the form of an online membership site? Do your students need continuous internet access if they want to learn from you?
They will be easily distracted by other websites (if they're listening to your MP3 lesson). Afterall, who wants to sit there in front of a computer and just listen, right?
It's hard enough to focus in a physical classroom. How much more on the web?
5. Course is not interactive enough. A highly interactive course (ideal for kinesthetics) goes beyond clicking buttons. Some educators think a screen with clickable arrows is already interactive. They haven't considered allowing students to fill-up forms, click on radio buttons of quizzes, drag objects around on a web page, or even record themselves (audio / video).
The same goes for those online Powerpoint presentations which are mostly a bunch of slides reach by the narrator, coupled with the occasional red line doodles, circles, and arrows. Do these really have to run for more than 5 minutes?
Teaching online is dying. But you don't need to be a statistic.
- Build your e-teaching course on a text-based foundation, then add the audio-visual bonuses.
- Give your students value for their money right from Day 1.
- Keep your non-text lessons short.
- Allow your students to easily jump from lesson to lesson.
- And please respond to your students' emails on a timely basis.
Try these tips and you will thrive in the e-teaching market. Yes, joint ventures and connections with prominent bloggers will help get the word out and attract a lot of sign-ups. Afterall, marketing does work, even for e-educators. If you wish to retain students, however, you'll need to go beyond product endorsements.
If you want to make online teaching work, think back to your halcyon days. Remember the teachers who inspired you. Learn from them.
Now go... and teach.
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"The Death of Teaching Online"
First Posted: October 31, 2007 | Filed in: General
Ok, I'm pretty guilty with #4! It's just that I can't stop clicking on that round blue green button on my browser's toolbar
Oh, actually as I was surfing and looking for on-line education webpages, I found a very *functional* live virtual classroom, which is interactive - I have already tried it out - have two way sound, webcam, whiteboard - just like the blackboard - chat, and you can use ppt, pdf, and picture formats. Have a go here http://www.wiziq.com/
These guys really make it look like online learning is alive and kicking. What do you think?
Jacques
Jacques, that's a terrific link. Thanks! I'll go give WizIQ.com a try. Now all we need are "students" to test if online learning is viable. I hope WizIQ is able to sustain its operations, though.