Online teaching.

What is Online Teaching?

Online teaching is quite simply, just what it says that it is. Taking classes or lear­ning a new skill in an online class­room, through email faci­li­ta­tion, e‑learning soft­ware, or through live chat classes. This is gene­rally done in order to avoid having to enter the actual class­room. Many online teaching faci­li­ties now exist within well-known colleges who use email and log ins on the college website to offer distance lear­ning classes in varying subject matters to students from all over the world.

What Is Online Teaching Good For?

Online teaching is useful for those who simply do not have the time to attend classes in a faci­lity that may be several hours drive away, or find it incon­ve­nient for other reasons to attend live classes on site. Instead they can use web confe­ren­cing services and online trai­ning soft­ware to enjoy the bene­fits of online teaching. It can be the only means by which they can gain addi­tional educa­tion given time cons­traints or work related reasons. Classes which are taught online account for nearly a third of the students who are atten­ding college classes. In fact, entire degrees can be gained from atten­ding an online univer­sity rather than atten­ding classes in an on-campus facility.

Who Can Use Online Teaching?

Online teaching can be used by nearly anyone who requires addi­tional know­ledge about subject matter that may vary from college courses to conti­nuing educa­tion credits to specia­lized know­ledge in compu­ters, writing or a wide array of other subjects. Nearly anyone who requires addi­tional skills or trai­ning for their career path, or even those who have not yet attended classes in college can use online teaching in order to further their know­ledge on any given subject or degree program that is offered by a college in an online course.

For the teacher involved, there is not a great diffe­rence required between the presen­ta­tion skills needed in an actual class­room compared to that of online teaching. On the other hand, the presen­ta­tion tools are diffe­rent as the teacher is required to fami­lia­rize them­selves with online meeting and remote desktop sharing solu­tions and then train the students in the use of these tech­no­lo­gies. Luckily enough, such solu­tions are very easy and fast to learn and there is even free online educa­tion soft­ware readily available for use.

How Does Online Teaching Work?

Online teaching is accom­plished in a wide variety of ways, using multiple methods. Many online college courses are taken on the college website using a secure log-in method. The class­room lectures may be down­loaded and home­work or required paper­work uploaded secu­rely via the college’s site. Class­rooms for online teaching are less formal, taking in fewer students and sending assign­ments and texts through email and recei­ving them in the same fashion.

Alter­na­tively online teaching can take place in real-time, by utili­zing desktop sharing soft­ware to form an online class­room. Students join the online class­room and can view the remote desktop of the teacher from their own computer, and listen to the teacher present the mate­rial via audio confe­ren­cing. There are also live chat websites for many online teaching events which permit the students to log in and faci­li­tate the real-time online teaching. If there are dozens and dozens of students atten­ding an online class, this is gene­rally referred to as a webinar.