An Online Paycheck During Carnival

There are those who might think that it would be impossible to teach online during Mardi Gras (“Fat Tuesday” is on 2/5/2008 this year) in New Orleans. Those that think The Traveling Online Teacher can’t plant his big scows on St. Charles Avenue at the beginning of Oshun, which will be followed in short order by Pygmalion, and keep his essay grading and discussion thread participation up to date are simply not familiar with my cat-like intellectual reflexes.

How can this wonderful combination of Mardi Gras and online teaching come into existence for you?

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned about online teaching since I started in March 2005 is that with a little technological preparation and deliberately tight scheduling it can be accomplished successfully from nearly any location on the planet.

Here’s how I coordinated the situation this year:

Since I’ve lived in the Big Easy for over 20 years, I know the major parade routes as well as I now know the layout of my online classes.

It is worth noting here that I have found it highly beneficial to make a deliberate decision to stay in one location for several months. That location can almost anywhere in the world, but it needs to be a place where you are comfortable. I spent three months in the northern part of the Louisiana immediately after the flooding of New Orleans, but I make it my business to quickly find a place to live and work.

I imagine there are people who can hop from place to place and still keep up with their teaching schedules, but I’m not one of them.

I made my mind up that I wanted to be in New Orleans for Mardi Gras 2008. I looked around for an apartment to rent near the main parade route on St. Charles Avenue. I located a place I liked just 50 feet from the Avenue. The place does a cost a pretty penny, but I earn enough to cover the monthly payment. I installed a DSL line and purchased an AT&T Option 3.6 GT MAX 3.6 Express wireless card for my Dell laptop.

With this set up, I can easily move between my online teaching workspace and the parade route. The AT&T card fives me the freedom to actually take my laptop to the parade route and work from a portable table or stand.

I imagine this can work any place I want to live. Ultimately, this is the prime benefit of online teaching. The best part of all is that it actually works.

You can attend Mardi Gras next year if you start now to acquire enough online classes to cover the cost of renting a place on the main parade route.

As always, one of the best places to start searching for online teaching is Online Teaching Search.