It’s no exaggeration to say that the work of teachers is essential to the health of any society. Great instructors possess the ability to delight and inspire and to have a positive influence on hundreds or thousands of lives.

Despite the value of this work, it’s also no exaggeration to say that teachers are often underpaid and undervalued. While the work of educating minds might have incredible intrinsic value, the market doesn’t compensate teachers accordingly.

Fortunately, there’s a relatively new development that’s helping today’s educators earn compensation that’s more in line with the value of their labor: online teaching. By using online teaching tools, educators can vastly expand the scope of their business. Instead of being limited to a few dozen students in a physical classroom, teachers can tap into massive global networks of interested learners.

Let’s take a deeper dive into this technology and learn how it can help you build stable and growing alternative revenue streams.

How online teaching maximizes teachers value?

The online learning market has seen exponential growth in recent years[1], driven largely by the benefits offered by modern educational technology. By incorporating online education into their offerings, higher learning institutions gain more flexibility, make their courses far more accessible to students, lower costs and improve classroom outcomes.

Teachers, too, have reaped enormous benefits from the emergence of new online learning technologies. Teachers working for learning institutions have used online learning to help students become more deeply engaged with classroom material. Meanwhile, teachers or tutors who are self-employed or who work on the side are using the technology to develop significant new revenue streams.

Modern online learning platforms allow teachers to maximize their value by connecting with potential students from across the globe. Because the pool of learners is so vast, even fairly specialized skills or expertise can have a robust market. Even better, these platforms are designed to make the experience of teaching and learning online as seamless and user-friendly as possible.

The business of tutoring for tests such as the SAT, GRE or ACT has always been a lucrative one. Additionally, parents have always needed a resource for supplementary education outside the classroom, especially when it’s time to help their children gain admittance into a highly competitive school.

Before online learning, time and distance limited the ability of teachers and tutors to find students, and vice versa. Today, those roadblocks are gone forever, and the market for supplementary teaching and tutoring has never been stronger.

By choosing the right technological tool, teachers can start developing significant new business opportunities almost immediately.

How to pick the right online teaching tool?

One smart option for those seeking to create a new revenue stream is the use of a virtual classroom software. This comprehensive software solution allows you to replicate the experience of a physical classroom online, offering a combination of the benefits of both approaches.

There are, however, some critical things to look for when evaluating virtual classrooms and other online learning products. Some of the most important features or attributes include the following:

• Ease of set up– Online learning platforms shouldn’t have a massive learning curve; the best cloud-based software allows you to quickly and intuitively grasp the teaching process. This means no additional hardware, third-party plugins or thorny installation issues. The sooner you can start delivering instruction, the faster your revenue stream will grow.
• Comprehensive teaching features– The right product should allow you to design, schedule, launch, record and manage your classes with ease and simplicity. As your business grows, you’ll need a full-featured platform that can grow along with you.
• Simple integration– If you’re using your standalone website or blog, an advanced virtual classroom should allow you to integrate its functionality with your existing platform. With the press of a few buttons, you can instantly leverage the power of online learning technology from your platform and tap into vast global markets
• Customized payment options– When you’re seeking to develop new revenue streams, it’s important to consider costs. That’s one reason why you should look for products that offer customized pricing plans that can be adjusted to meet the growth of your business.

Choosing the right product is an essential part of establishing a thriving online teaching business. By finding a platform with the features outlined above, you can ensure that your technology is comprehensive enough to handle any and all educational demands, and flexible enough to grow along with you.

The market opportunity is there — it’s simply a matter of using technology to seize your share.

The takeaway

Online learning continues to experience staggering growth, as more teachers, learners, and institutions seek to leverage its benefits. For teachers or tutors seeking to develop alternative revenue streams, the opportunity for growth has never been riper. Choosing the right tool, however, is a task of paramount importance. By choosing a full-featured virtual classroom equipped with the attributes listed above, you can ensure that you have the necessary technological infrastructure to support your thriving educational business.