The Online Instructor

Got Hired With Southern University!

2011-12-06T21:18:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted anything substantial but I've had quite a bit of recent success getting hired for more online teaching gigs and I wanted to share this with you.

In November I got picked up by Southern University. No interview over the phone. Just a nice email telling that I'd been credentialed to teach the following course. Southern has a nice reputation as being a good school to teach for and I'm looking for to the next email scheduling me for the instructor course.

I also interviewed with Concordia University Online in November to teach Educational Technology courses. Not sure how that one is going to turn out. Lastly, I interviewed Tuesday morning with Columbia Southern University with Dr. Rodgers and Ms. Quinley. Nice interview it went very well and I'm just waiting to see if I get a second interview offer next week. Hey, it could happen!

I started the search for more work in September of this year and really did it up right. Researched the latest fad in resume writing, re-did my cover letter and sent out emails and filled out online job applications on hundreds of college and university job sites. In the emails I included my resume, cover letter and unofficial transcripts. So many little details that you need to be aware of.

I got a lot of great information from the adjunct professors group on Linkedin and some job leads. There's also the adjunct Rolodex and other groups as well. Worth checking out.

Be sure to check the higheredjobs.com job board for job opportunities. Adjunctnation and adjunctworld are worth the effort of saving to your favorites and if you are in need of more online teaching work, be proactive.

In 2008 when I got my first gig teaching online with the University of Phoenix, online teaching jobs did not have lure they now have. Online teaching jobs have become much sought after and you can tell this by the way the weasels have come out of the woodwork to try and separate those looking to get hired from their money. Everything you need to get hired as an online adjunct is available on the Internet for free. No need to pay someone or pay for a seminar.

You need to know that this time of year just before the start of the spring 2012 sessions, college and universities are looking to hire to teach online classes. I know this from prior experience and that's why my big push started in September.

I played the numbers and knew that if I sent out 200-300 emails and filled hundreds of online job applications that I would get a small positive return and that's what happened but it's not over with yet. I could still see a couple of more positive returns before the end of the year.

Talk with you later!

Cliff

Adjunct World's On line College Directory! 800+ On line Colleges!

2011-07-27T06:33:00.000-07:00

Greetings everyone! Adjunct World has just posted their updated directory of over 800+ on line colleges. Very nice!

http://adjunctworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/adjunctworld-directory-of-online_19.html

Now teaching for University of Maryland UMUC!

2011-02-28T13:38:00.000-08:00

Completed the UMUC instructor course at the end of January and immediately began the Server 2008 Administration course for the 70-642 exam. The course room is a interesting to setup but you can setup the entire course up and have the course content appear when you want it, just select a date and time. Pretty sweet and on top of that you can archive your course for up to one year and they remind you when it is about to expire that that you can load it and than archive it again.

I will have to say that the UMUC instructor is the toughest so far. You must have a score of 85 to continue on as an instructor. The instructor class was 5 weeks long and not that many instructor candidates.

My first class started out with 10 student and I'm down to eight. Surprised it even went. The course is 13 weeks long and with everything automated, I just do my feedback everyday and post grades as needed. The grade book is hard to setup and the scoring must equal 100 no matter how you want to divide it up but grading of assignments is not that hard, not for eight students anyway.

Instructors at UMUC write their own course content and syllabus. Their is no course written for any instructor and at UMUC you do have the title of adjunct professor. That's got to be a first.

I'm enjoying my first course and it's going very smooth. One final note, no matter where the student is located, the final exam is proctored at a authorized testing center. During the first week, students must register to take the final. No final exams on line.

I first applied at UMUC back in 2007 and I did keep my on line application up to date which triggers a review each time that is done.

So far there has not been any administration burden imposed on me and I'm liking this new teaching gig. For those of you keeping score, I now teach for UMUC, ECPI and UoP/AXIA. I can't speak for everyone but I'm teaching half as much as I was last year for AXIA and even ECPI has slowed down some. Though it may look like I'm over extending myself, I'm just about where I was teaching for ECPI and AXIA. I did pick up another class at AXIA, the UNIV 100 introduction course. These are three weeks long and pay $500.0 for each session and I just taught my first two this January. Since then, nothing from AXIA. I did receive an offer to teach another UNIV 100 course but it was canceled that same day. It's not just UoP/AXIA that is slowing down. On line learning is starting to feel the effects of the recession. Never thought that would happen.

Instructor Course at University of Maryland, UMUC

2010-12-27T10:53:00.000-08:00

Greetings to everyone and Happy new year!

I've just started my second week of the instructor course at University of Maryland, UMUC. Not to difficult and so far I'm enjoying the challenge. I was contacted on the 14th of Dec and signed for the next instructor course that started on the 17th. The course room uses a proprietary software called WebTycho and it's not hard to get use to. Like every online course room it has its good and bad (missing) features.

UMUC has 15 week sessions and they pay $3500 a session. Do the math and it's close to being in line with just about any other online college. Classes usually have 30 students which is quite lot but still manageable. After your fourth class you can teach two at time and you can go all the way up to 4 and I think I may have been told 5 at one time.

The online interview with the course director for technology was very nice. I didn't embarrass myself and that's always a good thing. Starting to max out on the number of online positions that I can handle and still work full time as a network consultant. One more will do me.

Not to change the subject, but my classes have dropped to half of what they were last year for one of the colleges. I have one class starting on Jan. 3, 2011 for this college. I also notice my class size has dropped to 15 or less students.

I just found out that there is legal problems brewing for some online colleges that are being looked at pretty hard by the feds. One college in question is MUST University which some are saying is a diploma mill. Everything I read about makes me think it could be true. http://community.elearners.com/all_discussion_forums/prospective_and_current_online_students/f/31/p/5022/17371.aspx
Until next time!

Cliff

Teaching for EPCI...Nice place to work!

2010-08-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

Greetings Everyone,

I started teaching for EPCI a few months back and so far the experince has been very enjoyable. I'm now teaching two 5 week courses at a time and the pay is good. $1400.00 per course, half is paid at the third week and the balance paid at the end of the course. Very nice.

No surprises here. Take role call three days a week, check your email every day. EPCI is big on student retention, again no surprise there. Instructors are expected to answer questions and respond to student quickly and to post assignment grades in a timely manner. Nothing new here.

Great place to work so far. They seem to be expanding at warp speed and are always looking to hire in all subject manner. Search bing or Google for EPCI faculty jobs.

Here are some jobs sites to consider:

https://www.higheredjobs.com/MyHigherEdJobs/Agent/default.cfm?

http://www.linkedin.com/nhome/

http://www.job-search-engine.com/jobs?k=on+line+instructor&l=United+States

http://www.simplyhired.com/a/jobs/list/q-online+instructor

Using RoboForm to Manage Your Class Content Part II

2009-11-28T18:03:00.000-08:00

RoboForm has added a new online synchronization feature for storing data and allowing the data to be synchronized between to or more different computers. Right now this feature is in beta and costs nothing. If your like me, you find your self working from home and from your laptop as time permits. You create new feedback and comments and if you teach for more then one online college or university, it can get a little crazy tracking all the different content that you create. Add in the fact that your data may not be in sync form one PC to the next and you have to add the new feedback and comments to the location manually. Enter RoboForm online sync.

Another cool feature is having access to all your RoboForm data from any PC. If your PC crashes, your data is stored online. I have additional backups but having another can't hurt.

I use the safe notes feature built into RoboForm by creating folders for the colleges I teach for. Over the last year and a half I've created a large number of safe notes that cover postings for every week that classes are in session. Since I teach technology, much of what I teach is subjective and most often there is no right or wrong answer. I try to never post negative feedback and I don't store any in my safe notes.

In a previous post I demonstrated how to create and save feedback, postings and comments using RoboForm.

My next move is to post and share my safe notes as a downloadable file that can be dropped into anyones RoboForm's default container. My content applies to technology and may or may not be suitable for other disciplines.

www.roboform.com

Finding Work as an Online Instructor

2009-08-08T10:21:00.000-07:00

It takes me a while to figure things out but if I just keep at it, eventually it will come to past. I have been trying to figure out the best search engines and the best key words to use to find additional online teaching positions. I knew Google would not let me down, and so I kept up the search until I found a forum that pointed me to some excellent resources. The first one is Hotjobs.com and the second one is Juju job Search. I typed in the key word online instructor and both understood what I wanted. They both brought up plenty of online instructor positions from which I culled a half dozen for technology. I applied for everything I was qualified for and of the half dozen or so, I got a hit for CTU, Colorado Technical Institute. I have a phone interview scheduled.

I did finally figure out how to fill out the online application with Corinthian Colleges You have to select update your application and then build a new one from there.

If your having difficulty finding the right buzz words or catch phrases for your resume or cover letter, do a Google search for online instructor resumes and cover letters. Modify as needed.

On my resume, I let them know that I teach for single college and only teach one course every 9 weeks. It is a catch 22. They want online teaching experience but they do not want you to appear over whelmed.

'Till next time.

Cliff

Using RoboForm To Manage Class Content Part I

2009-05-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

I've been struggling to find an application that builds itself into IE and allows the user to open a text document from a folder list and paste the contents into a classroom forum page like those that we online instructors have to use to post content and comments to our students.

Each time a new class starts I have to rebuild the class from scratch because of the limitations of the classroom software. I do have the ability to keep and manage comments and they follow me from class to class but not class content. This is time consuming and repetitive but until now there was no other way.

I've been using Roboform to manage my accounts and passwords for quite some time and I thought wouldn't it be great if I could build a folder list in Roboform and have a folder for each week of the class and have the postings for that week all ready to go. To my surprise and joy, Roboform does have this ability!

Using the SafeNotes feature I built a folder list that represents the weeks that my class is in session. Inside the coresponding week, I made a note that contained the information for a posting for that week.

Now when I logon to my classroom, Roboform is sitting and waiting in the taskbar of my browser. I open up SafeNotes, go to the folder for that week, click on the file to post, hit Copy To Clipboard, right click and past into the classroom window and it is posted. Now if I could only figure out away to have it fill in the subject line as well...

The great thing about RoboForm is that it is portable, you can backup it up and copy your profile to a thumbdrive and place the contects on any machine. Take RoboForm with you when you travel.

For those online instructors that teach for more then one online college or university, Using RoboForm to manage the different classrooms could help make classroom management a lot easier.

Does anyone use any tools or software to ease the burden of having to rebuild a classroom each time a new class starts? Any thoughts on using RoboForm?

Shares, Links and Tools

2008-12-27T13:06:00.001-08:00

Here is where instructors can post and access links for instructor tools, shares, and web sites.

Student Feedback and Comments

2008-12-24T18:19:00.001-08:00

One tool that all online instructors have is an up-to-date database of feedback and comments that instructors use to fullful the requirement of providing timely feedback to their students.

Share your student feedback and comments with other online instructors here. If they pertain to a certain class, be sure to mention that as well.

Let's Get it Started!

2008-12-24T14:54:00.000-08:00

Greetings and Salutations,

I've decided to put together this blog to help myself and other online instructors have somewhere to go to post and pull down resources, share ideas and support each other.

The idea being that online instructors or anyone interested in online instruction for can post their thoughts, interesting links and URL's, job postings, share feedback and comments for students, and tips and tricks that help to make us all better instructors.

In the coming days, I'll be breaking the blog down into sections and inviting all my fellow online instructors to come on board and start but don't wait for me. If you have something to add let me know.

Cliff