There doesn’t seem to be any stopping the layoffs in public education, so it is time for teachers at all levels of the academy to ferret out online teaching opportunities and learn how they can provide a great measure of personal and professional control over the economic turmoil of modern academic life. A teacher with a earned graduate degree, a master’s degree or Ph.D., and classroom experience should consider at length the impact of distance education technology on the delivery of post-secondary instruction and those intellectuals that deliver it to college and university students. The reality is that an online adjunct instructor teaching for a variety of online bachelor degree programs and online master’s degree programs can exercise much more immediate control over the income generated from teaching online that is currently possible in a physical classroom. In the case of traditional adjunct college and university faculty members, it is virtually impossible to increase the monies from post-secondary teaching unless there are several more community colleges or universities within driving distance of the original academic institution. A traditional adjunct instructor literally must be able to drive a motor vehicle to another school in order to earn any cash by teaching college and university students enrolled in that extra school. The same adjunct professor that transitional into online college degree programs and transforms into an online adjunct instructor does not even need to physically arrive on the campus of a physical college in order to teach the students enrolled in the online college courses offered by the school.
The same holds true for educators at the secondary level. The administrators seem determined to empty the physical classrooms forever and thoroughly, so those finding themselves without employment can also transition into online degree programs provided an earned graduate degree is in hand at the time the applications for online faculty positions are made at the websites of the colleges and universities. For those teachers possessing only a bachelor degree, it is well worth the time and expense to enroll in an online master degree program and obtain the required academic credentials to teach at the post-secondary level.
Any analysis of the current enthusiasm new and returning college and university students have for accredited distance learning programs will immediately revel a growing profusion of jobs teaching online college classes. The availability of the opportunity to earn online degrees for military, an online bachelor of nursing degree or an online it degree simply by accessing the Internet from a personal computer is quite attractive to today’s post-secondary student, and it is just as attractive to the academic administrators seeking feverishly an instructional delivery vehicle that is far less expensive to deploy and maintain than the traditional physical college classroom at the campus on which it sits. In the end, teaching online is the future of education and the teachers that recognize the benefits of participating in its growth will certainly enjoy the mobility and online adjunct income streams it offers those willing to master the use of a personal computer and learn how to navigate the Internet in an efficient fashion. The time for educators to seize online teaching opportunities is now, and the potential for a long online teaching career is such that it represents a distinctly more prosperous alternative for a career in education than attempting to remain in the physical college and university classroom.