Job opportunities in e-learning for teachers of English
This is a discussion thread which will look at opportunities for EFL-related jobs online. We can share our knowledge and experience here..
Synchronous learning online is something I am just beginning to explore though I often go to second life and use virtual classrooms for meetings, I have yet to do any 'teaching' in them. For the last couple of years I've been focused on the asynchronous world - designing and running courses for teachers on the moodle and blackboard platforms. I like these as it gives teachers (and students) the flexibility to 'attend' courses when they like rather than having to be online at a fixed time though it does sometimes take people sometime to get used to not getting immediate feedback etc which they would from the real time interaction.
I have found Moodle to be a great platform to use from a student's point of view. I have also recently been involved in setting up a Moodle course as a collaborative exercise, and seeing it from the teacher's point of view has been very interesting. Moodle has got a lot of great features, which I like, such as the Glossary, Forum and Wiki. Its flexibility and operability make it fairly straightforward to work with. I am still learning, however, and will need much more practice!
I have never used the "Blackboard" platform. How does it compare with Moodle?
Hi Janet,
Thanks for starting this discussion. I think skype a lone is not ideal for teaching online. As a e-moderator/ instructor you will need to consider some important additions to support your teaching goals including e.g., a white board, files sharing system, activities/interaction tools, and tracking and assessment components. As you already know, Moodle and other LMS very much provide most of these and perhaps integrating additional functions to a system you are adopting will make it perfect enough for any teaching online situation.
I have personally used both Moodle and BB. I can assure you that Moodle is much better in many terms; being user-friendly, open support and definitely cost as an open source..
Ismail
Hi Ismail
Nice to meet you here. Many thanks for your helpful advice, which I appreciate. I agree Skype alone is a bit limited, but it is just a beginning. In the future, I would like to become more confident with the additions you mentioned above, as they all make for a much more interactive and fruitful teaching/learning experience.
I look forward to more discussions on this topic.
Janet
Hi Ismail,
I can't really express my opinion of BB in polite language. Suffice to say I really cannot begin to understand why any institution would want to pay money for something so useless.
However, I'm not sure I completely agree with you about Skype. I guess it really depends what you want to do. I use it for carrying out one to one tutorials which works just fine. There are plenty of add-ons for Skype, such as a white board that you can use if needed.
Best wishes,
Pete
Hi Janet and Pete,
Thanks for your responses. I agree that skype could be enriched with additional add-ons, but unfortunately not all of these are free. I have previously tried several of these, but the interesting ones were always commercial where you have to pay for. Anyhow, it is true like you said that it depends on what you want to do with it..
BTW, I do agree about BB. I have been blocked from a course I am participating in through BB for almost a week and still can't figure out the reason for that technical issue!
Regards,
Ismail
Synchronous learning online is something I am just beginning to explore though I often go to second life and use virtual classrooms for meetings, I have yet to do any 'teaching' in them. For the last couple of years I've been focused on the asynchronous world - designing and running courses for teachers on the moodle and blackboard platforms. I like these as it gives teachers (and students) the flexibility to 'attend' courses when they like rather than having to be online at a fixed time though it does sometimes take people sometime to get used to not getting immediate feedback etc which they would from the real time interaction.
My favourite tools for teaching online are Moodle (for course organization), WiZiQ (for synchronous sessions) and Skype (for voice or video chat).
I have been working with them for some time and they are very versatile and reliable.
Vicky
Hi Vicky
Nice to meet you here. I have some knowledge of the above tools, but not a great deal of experience with them. I find Moodle is very practical to work with and use, but I haven't really ventured out beyond the confines of a small experimental teaching group. I have limited experience with Skype. I hope to be using WiziQ soon to see how that works from a teaching perspective. The tools are out there. It's a case of having the confidence to venture out and actively use them for personal job opportunities.
I guess the question on this thread is also how does one go about setting up virtual classes for paid job opportunities? Where does one begin? Are virtual e-teaching jobs advertised in a special place, or is it a question of having good contacts? Or just being brave enough to go it alone? For example, WiZiQ allows you to set up your own private classes to give to students. I have also seen e-jobs advertised via Twitter for various positions,and I feel that is a good place, but it's vast! Does anyone have any links to share regarding giving advice to help someone who is interested in finding out more?
I look forward to hearing your views:)
Dear Janet,
thanks so much for opening this thread, as this is exactly what I am interested in at the moment, as I am curious to explore new career opportunities in elearning but, as you say, it is difficoult to find this kind of jobs advertised. I'll be following this thread and I am myself looking forward to hearing everyone's views!
Best Wishes,
Silvia
Hi Silvia
Great that you are here. Look forward to some interesting discussions on this particular subject!
Best wishes
Janet
Hi,
I would like to know more about Moodle and the various ways to teach online. I live and work in Kerala, India and there is great learning opportunity here.
Hi Suma
Nice to meet you here. In answer to your question, a good place to start is with the actual Moodle platform itself, which has an excellent guide to how it works. http://moodle.org Hopefully over the coming weeks we can share our ideas and experiences concerning particular e-learning platforms such as Moodle.
Hi Janet
Thank you so much for the information.
Regards
Suma
Hi Suma,
If you are interested in 'playing' with a moodle there are some free hosters out there, one that I have used is on http://www.keytoschool.com/moodle/hosting there are limitations but it is quite a nice place to start.
Shaun
Hi Shaun, hi everyone
Great discussion on VLEs.
I've been working with BB for the last five years.
It's not perfect, but it has allowed me to do a lot.
Moodle's limitations, in my particular case, are the 2MB my host offers me in terms of upload space - eaten up by a single file!
Best wishes to all.
Carlos
Hi Carlos,
It must be quite annoying if the host only allows you 2MB, I was working on one recently that only allowed that and uploaded a presentation and that was it. However, for a free service as opposed the cost of Blackboard I still think it wins out :-)
Shaun
Hi Suma
You might also be interested in reading this e-book review "Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching", which contains some free extracts for you to download and read at leisure.
Press this link http://tinyurl.com/yb5g7h9
Janet
Hi there all
This is a really interesting thread and there's some great information being shared around. My session will be about using moodle as a self-access platform for language teaching, but I also work for a big company that has an eLearning department, of which I'm the learning systems manager. I think I'm really lucky to have a job dedicated to eLearning, but there are lots of schools out there which are looking for people with ideas to help develop eLearning. Not to mention so many university level jobs requesting eLearning experience. It's a burgeoning field, as Silvia said jobs in it are rare but jobs asking for experience in it are becoming more common.
Hi Richard,
I just read the abstract for your talk, sound interesting - I use moodle mainly for teachers so it will be interesting to see the self-access for students point of view.
Shaun
Hi there
Interesting thread. My favourite tool combination for online language teaching is Second Life and Moodle. This has really worked well for my students and me. With the new SL viewer, integrating a whiteboard and doing writing activities have become much easier, too.
Ismail and Pete, I only have experience with BB as a student but I have to agree with you.
Nergiz
Regarding online teaching, Jason Renshaw has recently written a good blog posts: http://jasonrenshaw.typepad.com/jason_renshaws_web_log/2010/03/taking-yo...
Nergiz
Hi Nergiz,
Thanks for posting Jason's link. What he is doing with his 'online coursebook' looks amazing. I was exploring the voxpop site he mentions - www.voxopop.com, a site I had not really explored before but looks a very useful teaching tool.
As for SL I know from twitter how much you use it, after this conference I really must get to grips with it.
Shaun
Shaun,
I am also amazed at what Jason has been doing.
I have known www.voxopop.com for a while (it was called chingswing before) but have only recently used it with my students. It's good to have the option of making the discussions there public or private.
As an experienced teacher and teacher trainer and someone who is already using SL for other purposes , it won't take you long to be able to teach there. We have just finished the AVALON pilot language teacher training course. Some of the teachers were complete newbies but they were all able to teach a lesson at the end of the six weeks.
Nergiz
hi
i would like to know web sites which offer a plaftform for online teaching. I want to know about tools, how to start teaching etc. I teach and live in Chennai, India.
Hi,
Thanks everybody for the very useful ideas, thoughts and links.
Best,
Mercedes
Hi everybody
Second Life and Moodle sounds like an interesting combination, Nergiz!
The Avalon project sounds very interesting too. Do you have a link which gives more information? Thanks :)
Janet,
You can join the AVALON learning Ning if you are interested in Virtual Worlds and language teaching/learning. http://avalon-project.ning.com/ This is an Eu-funded project. The teacher training pilot course was part of it. Here is some more information: http://www.avalonlearning.eu/
Nergiz
Nergis
Thank you very much indeed for the links above, which I will look into as soon as I can. I appreciate your prompt response to my question. I have not entered Second Life yet, but I have an avatar ready and waiting patiently to be introduced to this totally new and probably exciting world.
Janet
I have been involved in online teaching for over ten years now and have a Masters Degree in Educational Technology as well as an IH Certificate in Online Teaching (COLT). Also, I briefly did a stint with a Korean firm using Skype to teach English, by offering international students free 24 hour round the clock tutoring for a period of time before charging them.
The problem with teaching on Skype is that you have to commit to being online at the same time every evening to talk to your students, which really cuts into your freedom and life choices. As a technology, there is still an issue with broadband access in many poor countries, so you end up resorting to chat instead of voice, when there are technical glitches. Teachers get paid into a PayPal account, so you can only use the salary purchasing online with PayPal.
I agree with Shaun that for now, I much prefer asynchronous teaching and learning, at least if you go global, rather than work regionally. I have used WebCT, Blackboard (up to Version 9, which is the newest) and designed and moderated a course in Moodle for the United Nations. Moodle is definately my preference. Even in the newest version of Blackboard, which is semi-improved, you still have to backtrack all over the place to follow a threaded discussion. The drop box for submitting assignments in now gone, too, far as I can tell.
That said, there are many jobs out there to e-moderate and surprisingly they are listed in traditional job forums such as www.craigslist.com (pick your city- under education) and www.ajarn.com (for Thailand and Asia), at Dave's ESL Cafe, as well as at the job listings board of the Chronicle of Higher Education (do a search within their job listings for "distance learning"). Of course, not all of these are ELT jobs, but they do appear from time to time. Some are fly-by-night dodgy firms. Another web site that has monthly e-teaching job opportunities is www.geteducated.com which is a website mostly geared to online degree programs. Many of these jobs, especially with universities require a minimum of a Masters Degree, not your traditional CELTA/DELTA qualifications.
I am curious to hear from people who designed and marketed private courses, specifically in TOEFL or IELTS preparation online. How is it managed and what learning system management platform are you using? How is that working out for you? Any pointers for the rest of us promoting self-created classes that are not under the umbrella of a well-known language teaching organization?
Thank you so much for all the useful forums you have mentioned which list e-jobs. I am also interested in the questions you have asked regarding management of private courses. I think the link above to Jason Rensahw's blog post is a very practical one full of helpful tips. It seems that teaching exam preparation classes online are extremely popular, so it would be a very good area to focus on for e-teaching jobs.
Janet
Right, this is the moment for me to provide a link to my own meagre little blog which consists of tips, tools and ideas for online teaching - www.emoderationskills.com .I hope some of you will find it useful!
Nicky
Hi Nicky
Thanks very much for posting a link to your fab blog, which I think is very useful indeed for anyone considering online teaching!
Janet
Very interesting thread going on here .I agree with Janet that Skype is one of the best free voice tools available for sychronous learning .But I think that it's a bit limited when compared to virtual classrooms such as http://www.learncentral.org/user/vroomreg or http://www.wiziq.com/home/ or http://vyew.com/site/ which provide file uploading , desktop sharing and a shared whiteboard .As for asynchronous learning I like http://www.voxopop.com/ mentioned by Nergiz , and I adore a similar tool called http://voicethread.com/?#q which is a forum in which you can participate with video , audio or text .
Mbarek
Hi Mbarek
Thanks for the links above. I have used wiziq as a student and teacher and enjoyed the experience. I quite like Elluminate as well. Voicethread certainly is a tool I want to try out for myself. I have added to people's creations, but I haven't made my own yet! Voxopop also sounds interesting. So many exciting tools, you need time to investigate them. Slowly but surely, I guess:)
Janet
Interesting discussion- thanks Janet.
I'd go along with the comments on Moodle.
I've worked in institutions where I've had to use WebCT and BB unfortunately. When I moved country three years ago to a new institution with no established LMS I decided to go it alone with Moodle and haven't looked back. Although I teach face2face courses, the user friendliness of Moodle has enabled me to gradually do more and more online 24/7 with even the initially most reticent of in-service teacher groups. The main limitation I've found is the blog feature although I've managed to be more creative with that recently. We also now have a link from Moodle into a Blogger site we've been working in. Private/public options are important in my choices of additional tools to work with- Voxopop is a great little tool.
My main concern is that I'm relying on free hosting by joining a colleague's host provider (he pays annually) and I'm not sure what the most economical host provider might be for an individual teacher educator once that option ends? any suggestions welcome.
It's hard to imagine life before Moodle!
teresa
Hi Teresa
It's great to hear how much you enjoy using Moodle. It is indeed a very versatile platform from what I have seen and read. Hopefully, someone here might have a good suggestion for what you can do once the option you have ends. I'd be interested in finding out what any members of the forum could suggest.
Best
Janet
This thread is getting more and more interesting! I'd like to thank you all for sharing! There is a lot of useful information!
Don´t know whether this comment is still going to find its way to the FORUM, but as Silvia above says it´s very interesing the amount of information you have all offered.
I live in Uruguay ( small country in South America between two bhemoths like Brazil and Argentina) but I worked abroud in Brazil, Spain, the UK and finally Mexico.
We are light years behind you but in 2007 I started the ICT concept going by runnig a course from EDI EDUCATIONAL USE OF ICT. Major "tour-de force" but they all got through the exam and some of hte participants designed fantastic activities.
I am now back to the VIRTUAL WORLD and will be doing everything on line. Moodle beat me, or at least the versions I got hold of. So I shall be using a very nice platform that a Uruguayan created for the On Line courses. Will let you know how it goes.
Hi Maria
Well done for starting the ICT concept going in Uraguay! Every step goes a long way in changing things in the end.
I think the forums will be running as long as people have something to say, so at least for the time being, we can still share information and communicate here. It's been an incredible experience online, don't you all agree?
Best
Janet
Teaching conversational English online via Skype has been very effective for me. It's a great way to teach in the comfort of your own home! I usually post an analysis of any errors encountered immediately after the lesson. This error correction activity then forms the basis for the beginning of the next lesson. Links to readings / interactive grammar / vocabulary games etc for the student to do online can also be posted before the lesson for feedback and discussion. I would love to hear how any of you use Skype for effective teaching online!
An excellent new tutorial called "How to use Skype for lessons" has just been published on Russell Stannard's Teacher Training Video site. It gives you step by step instructions, narrated by Nik Peachey. This is the address- http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/skype/index.html
I'll definitely learn a lot from this video!
Marisa Constantinides has just published a great blog post called "Braving it in the Virtual World - Being an Online Teacher. Here is the address http://marisaconstantinides.edublogs.org/2010/03/15/braving-it-in-the-vi...
The post talks about different types of virtual classrooms for online teaching including using Second Life.
I'd be interested to find out if any members of this forum have particular experience in any of the "Virtual teaching platforms" which are available and if so, what are the advantages and disadvantages, if any. How easy / difficult was it to set up your online classes?
Look forward to hearing your views!