The education system changed drastically over the past year with the shutdown of schools and colleges as a result of the pandemic situation. This resulted in the distinctive rise of e-learning and remote online teaching through various digital platforms.
The sudden shift of teaching away from classrooms across the globe impacted education market. However, there was an increasing adoption of online education technology and rise in global educational tech investments which had a significant surge since Covid-19.
With the significant demand for online education, many online learning platforms are offering free access to their services and are announcing free love classes. However all schools and colleges are also running online classes to students even post lockdown which resulted the teachers to operate and teach students online.
To be able to teach online, even the teachers and instructors need to be familiar with the technology and need certain requirements. Online teaching is considered as an art of teaching through a digital setting and is divided into two categories synchronous and asynchronous learning.
Synchronous learning include students and teachers meeting online on a digital platform and engage in real-time learning while asynchronous learning involves teachers assigning work to students to complete it on a common deadline.
Technical Requirements for Online Teaching
To provide best online learning experience to students, teachers require following tools:
- Broadband or high-speed Internetwith a speed of at least 400kbps
- A fast and reliable computer or laptop with high speed processor
- Webcam and microphone
- Video chat software
- Headphones
- Multi-camera software
Steps-by-step guide on how to become an Online Teacher
Internet has made teaching even more accessible for teachers. The following are the steps that help you discover how to become an online instructor:
- Set regular schemes and personal goals
Having a priority list for your online classes is always the best. Teachers can always set concrete goals with specific dates about how often to publish a new class and set deadlines to complete particular topics or subjects. Keeping an account of the commitments and resources used for online teaching is essential to become an online teacher. By incorporating goals into online teaching helps maximize teachers’ productivity.
- Choose a topic for the class
To develop an online class topic, teachers need to take few practical steps to ensure that the topic fits teachers’ skill sets and students’ interest areas. For this, teachers can research about student community the skills and requirements of students and also think of past creative projects so that they can use the same idea to teach students in an interesting way so that they can have an engaging class.
- choose the right online platform
It is vital to choose an online platform that suits you and works well for you and your students among the various options that are available now. In addition to this it is always better to research about the pros and cons of online teaching and how to be an online teacher. Choosing the right online platform and having available class creation tools is one of the important steps to teach online.
- Conduct classes In online friendly manner
Most of online classes are conducted the same way traditional classes are conducted in classrooms by just spreading the course for several hours. However, this method doesn’t work quite well with online classes. Students tend to distract more during online classes and therefore, teachers are always encouraged to take classes for shorter duration like somewhere between twenty minutes to one hour.
Shorter classes enable students to easily understand what is being taught enabling them to focus more and stay committed.
- Engage, connect and communicate
It is difficult to foster and maintain student engagement in online classes compared to face-to-face interactions. However, there are few tools that are available to eliminate these barriers. For example, Skillshare teachers can use discussions to announce new classes or updates or connect with student followers and share class-related resources. Students can also practice their learned skills through project prompts.
Conclusion There is an increasingly growing demand for online instructors from the past few years due to high global demand for high-quality education. The effect of pandemic situation however impacted the education system with all schools and colleges operating remotely and depending on online teaching and online classes. However, technological advancements made it possible and easier for online instructors to conduct online classes efficiently and effectively with e-Classrooms.
