One most important deciding factor for the success of an online course is the platform (or learning management system) where you’re delivering the course. It is possible to simply create a course and share the course resources, assignments, updates, feedback and more, all without a specific online platform to host your course. But it is usually not the best approach.
What is learning management system?
Using a learning management system will help organizing your course and making your life much simpler. Most of the online courses are hosted and managed on online learning management systems such as Teachable or Udemy, or other similar platforms.
Learning management systems are platforms where teachers and students collaborate to improve the academic achievements of students. This frees up time of the instructors (or educators) to focus more on the learning experience of students.
With learning management systems students now have 24-7 access to their courses, resources (or tools) and communication channel to fellow students and instructors. This makes it simpler for students to achieve quick academic success.
Instructors and students
Learning management systems let instructors:
- Create online classes or courses.
- Add assignments that students can access from remote locations wherever they have Wifi or internet connection.
- Grade the assignments and deliver quick feedback to students.
- Communicate with students as groups or individually.
Learning management systems let students:
- Access courses online (i.e. remotely) including the course content, syllabus, course expectations, assignments, information like assignment due dates, etc.
- Submit assignments, view grades, and get feedback on the platforms.
- Communicate and collaborate with other fellow students.
- Communicate with instructors.
A good learning management system allows any teacher or instructor to organize and optimize the entire class (or course) process.
Udemy is like an online marketplace for courses. Students can get access to thousands of courses. Instructors can quickly launch a course and let the large student base to find and buy the course.
Teachable is a cloud-based platform where instructors have full control including all the course materials, pricing, etc. It may take time to find and gather new students to buy the course, because the instructors are responsible for marketing their own course. Teachable allows much more flexibility for any course hosted on it.
Conclusion
If you’ve decided teaching online is a good option for you, start right away and build it into your long term online business. Remember to make good use of a learning management system such as Teachable or a platform like Udemy.
If creating a course and teaching online may become too complicated for you, you can always find simpler methods to make money on the side with your spare time. The list of websites will give you a good idea from which of the 200 websites that you can earn cash while keeping your day time job.
