Are you a new distance education teacher overwhelmed with your responsibilities? Or, maybe you want to enhance your online teaching skills so your next online course rocks?
If so, then read this blog post! You’re about to discover 5 of the best insights I’ve learned in the world of distance education after launching and teaching over a dozen digital courses.
5 Powerful Teaching Lessons For New Distance Education Teachers:
- # 1 – Get The Right Microphone From The Start
- # 2 – Remember The Power Of Rehearsal
- # 3 – Here’s How Automation Can Skyrocket Your Teaching Leverage
- # 4 – My Favorite Recording Apps To Help Record Your Lectures Without Stress
- # 5 – How To Make Sure That Every Lecture You Ever Teach Rocks
I’ve spent innumerable evenings and untold hours of writing, planning, launching, and teaching digital courses. I’m proud to share my best insights below!
# 1 – Get The Right Microphone From The Start
I find that confidence is critical in the world of online teaching. I also think that using a respectable microphone is a great way to boost your confidence as a teacher!
There are other benefits to having a good microphone. For example, I think a respectable microphone can help make your students feel at ease. There’s nothing worse for a student than feeling like their teacher is ill-prepared!
Try to make your students feel welcome in their new learning environment! In my opinion? One of the best ways to do that is to record your course lectures with a halfway decent microphone.
If you’ve taken my courses, and if you agree that my audio lectures sound adequate, then you might love to try the exact microphones that I use.
I use two microphones. A Snowball – Blue microphone, and a Samson Go Mic microphone. Both options are great USB microphones that in my opinion sound superior to most microphones that come standard in laptops and phones.
The best thing about the Snowball – Blue and the Samson Go Mic is that they’re both super inexpensive. I purchased each microphone for around $50 – $100 on Amazon. The Samson Go Mic was much cheaper and cost around $40, which is a great deal.
# 2 – Remember The Power Of Rehearsal
If you’re anything like me, you’re a nervous wreck when it comes to public speaking! That’s why I’m a huge fan of rehearsing.
That’s also why I try my best to write the course lectures out in advance before I teach or record a single slide.
That way, I can rehearse my course lectures before I record them into audio format. I also know exactly what topics I’m going to cover because I rehearse and proofread. I can confidently double, and triple check my course lectures to ensure that I don’t waste a single word and to ensure that I don’t miss any critical steps in the presentation.
Rehearsing also allows you to make your course lectures pithy. Your students will probably appreciate short, actionable content that doesn’t waste their time.
Another big benefit of writing out your course lectures in advance is that you can then hand those lectures out to your students as supplemental material. (You can either email the lectures as an attachment, make them available in your course membership area, or send your students a link to Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive.)
That way, your students can get your lectures in audio and text format! As you know, different students prefer different methods of learning, so providing multiple learning formats is a great benefit to your students.
# 3 – Here’s How Automation Can Skyrocket Your Teaching Leverage
One of the most critical lessons I can teach is that you should consider recording your lectures. That way, you can strive to prepare and produce the perfect presentation, and leverage that presentation over and over again. The result is that your students always see you teaching at your best.
There are several ways you can share your presentation once it’s ready. One smart way I’d love to discuss is webinar automation.
Automated webinars are one of the smartest ways in the world to automate course lectures. You can record a 45-minute long presentation, (or even a 2-hour long presentation if you wish) and then share that presentation to your students over and over again using automated webinars. Automated webinars also have a ton of advantages for your curriculum that are easy to overlook.
Advantages Of Automated Webinars For Teachers:
- Easily integrates with email followups, so you can remind your students to attend, followup after they attend, et cetera.
- Webinars allow you to chat with your students in realtime as they watch the presentation so you can answer any questions.
- Automated webinars are very easy for your students to attend across multiple devices.
- You can include handouts, calls to action, instructions, et cetera during the webinar.
- No annoying logins or passwords required for your students! All your students need is the webinar registration link.
If you’re not sure which automated webinar platforms exist, then I’m a huge fan of EverWebinar, StealthSeminar, and EasyWebinar. Either of those platforms provides powerful automation features so you can teach your students and put your lectures on autopilot.
# 4 – My Favorite Recording Apps To Help Record Your Lectures Without Stress
One of my favorite apps to help record your lectures is Audacity. Audacity is the golden standard for audio recording because it’s ridiculously easy to use and also free.
Just about all of my online courses use Audacity to record the audio! You can also use Audacity to clean your audio, remove any accidental sounds, stutters, blank spaces, or awkward moments.
Once your audio is finished, and you’re satisfied with how it sounds, you can easily export your audio lecture as a .mp3 file so you can quickly distribute the file to your students.
For video recording and screencasting I’m a huge fan of Camtasia or Active Presenter. I’ve used both of those apps a great deal to record many course lectures, and they’re both unfathomable easy to use.
# 5 – How To Make Sure That Every Lecture You Ever Teach Rocks
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned after teaching over a dozen online courses is that you should strive to stay excited when you record your lectures.
If you bring ample energy to your course curriculum, then your students will appreciate your enthusiasm. Your students will acknowledge, or at least recognize that you’re passionate, knowledgeable, and happy to share your experience and insights.
Your energy levels, charisma, and attitude are everything. Try your best to smile as you teach, so your students know that they’re in the presence of an amazing teacher who loves to teach and help others!
Conclusion
I love online teaching, online learning, and distance education. That’s why I’m proud to share my best teaching insights with you.
I hope that this content finds you well, truly.
As always, I invite you to contact me if you have questions about marketing, teaching, blogging, writing, or anything nerdy!
Until that time, please enjoy a gratifying day. And please never stop teaching!
Cordially yours…
Mike “Forever A Teacher” DeVincent
MrComputerScience.com