A Six-Year Old Laptop On My Knee

While grading essays over an espresso at a popular coffee hole on Magazine Street in New Orleans, I began thinking that I hadn’t run into anyone else in this city that actually makes a full time living from distance education.

I think a lot of teachers have heard about online teaching, and I think a lot of teachers would like to try teaching online, but they don’t know anyone who actually makes a living teaching online.

I was in the same boat when New Orleans was flooded at the end of August 2005. I wasn’t sure at all that online teaching could provide me with a living.

However, the flood provided me with the opportunity to learn more than I ever expected to learn about the economic viability of online teaching.

At the beginning of the semester in January 2005, I taught on the ground (five courses) at two institutions in my city. As I moved from one campus to another during the day, I noticed various bulletin boards with flyers pinned to them announcing this school or that school seeking online teachers. One night, as I was surfing around the Internet, I decided to drop in at Monster.com and search for one of the schools advertising on the flyers.

Much to my surprise, I discovered an e-mail link that allowed me to submit my resume to the online division of a national school.

By March 2005 I was teaching two online classes, and by July 2005 I was teaching three online classes. Believe be, for an on-ground adjunct, three classes running during the summer months is a pretty sweet deal. However, I still didn’t understand that online teaching could be full time gig, and I found myself a week before the great flood teaching the same five on-ground courses and the three online courses.

I was under the impression that a combination of on-ground and online classes was a pretty good deal for an adjunct.

Then Hurricane Katrina showed up and I fled New Orleans with a six-year old laptop on my knee.

From a kitchen table located in the north end of Louisiana, I taught my three online courses and added another online course. While grading essays and participating in discussion forums, I watched the CNN news announcers report that every public school teacher in New Orleans had been fired. I began receiving e-mail from my on-ground schools announcing that I had been fired.

At that moment, I became a full time online teacher, and, two and one half years later, I have yet to step foot in a physical classroom.

In my next post, I will relate what I’ve learned about the business of online teaching.