Mair

Secrets of Success - Online Teaching

2010-03-20T14:59:00.014Z

Well, next week, I have nine (yes that's right nine :-O) 1:1 online sessions booked teaching at eduFire! I feel so buoyed up by it all that I am going to share my 'Secrets of Success' here. Eat your heart out Stephen Covey, here are Mair's top 5 things to do to be a successful online tutor:

1. Teach for Exams

Students studying for exams are serious. They want to pass. They want to do well. They, or their parents, will be very willing to pay to get high quality help that will improve their chances of success.

2. Make Sure People Who are Doing Exams Know about You

Despite the wonders of technology and social media and the fact that you are working online, word of mouth via real people is still the most effective way to get new customers. If people hear of you that way, they are somehow more inclined to see you as a real person than if they meet you online. I have a couple of students who have found me via the eduFire site, but more have come via my sister, who homeschools her own children and who can mention me when other homeschoolers are looking for help. Once you have a few students, they will mention you to others too; at least they will if you can provide what your students need.

3. Be Very Good at Teaching for Exams

I use a method which works very well for me and my students. I aim my teaching directly at the syllabus. I take the syllabus and make notes against it for each topic. I highlight anything the student needs to memorise in red. I make the notes very short and focused. I teach using these notes and give the notes to the student. I do examples with the student referring to the notes and I make sure the student can do examples unaided before I move on.

4. Be Very Good at Coaching for Exams

This is how I coach, once the syllabus is covered. I work through the oldest exam paper I have with the student. I then set the next oldest exam paper I have for the student to do for homework. Before the next lesson, they do it and send it to me (scanned and emailed). I mark it. In class, I praise the good bits and reinforce any good habits shown in the work. I explain the problems and make sure the student understands how to put them right. We put them right together. I give the student the next oldest exam paper ... etc. When we have done 5 or so past papers in this way, students are usually scoring in the 90%s and can go to the exam full of confidence and with a very, very high probability of success.

5. Care about Your Students' Success

Your students are going to pick up in a very few minutes whether you do this or not and, if they see that you do, you will very quickly find you are working together with real enthusiam and pleasure towards the same goal. Teaching is then a great joy as well as a business venture.

I wish all online tutors the success they deserve, because I know how hard they have to work for it :-)

Moving on with Online Tuition

2010-02-17T12:27:00.006Z

Well, the great new CLEP opportunity didn't really materialise. It seems America is not quite ready for online learning or perhaps we seemed to be asking too much commitment up front. For whatever reason, only a couple of CLEP classes went ahead and those with only 2 pupils each.

I decided to concentrate on 1:1 classes and suddenly found both Maths and Latin students waiting in the wings. Part of this new success if definitely due to personal recommendations, but one newcomer wandered in through seeing me on eduFire so perhaps all the CLEP publicity wasn't wasted. My weekly earnings are still lower than I hoped, but they are increasing and I have total control over what I accept and when I schedule lessons. I am not sure I have found the final answer, but I have a small steady income and I enjoy the company of my students. Things are looking up a little :-)

Great New eduFire opportunity - for students and for me.

2009-12-06T14:22:00.022Z

.... and then, just when I was beginning to think that making an online living was all too difficult, and had started reading conventional job adverts with real interest, along came this....

eduFire, the online l earning site where I have been teaching Latin for the last year or so, came up with an initiative to deliver preparatory courses for an type of American exam called CLEP. This allows students in many parts of the world to demonstrate achievement to universities that award credit for CLEP qualifications and to use their CLEP qualification to obtain credit towards a university degree. This is brilliant for students, because it is relatively inexpensive way of obtaining degree credit (see current fee here). Students simply have to register at any CLEP testing centre and take an exam. All they need to do is make sure they have the learning to pass that exam well enough to gain credit at any university that awards credit for CLEP. Each university has its own minimum mark for award of credit. You can see the College Board recommendations here, but need to check policy with the college of your choice.

So ... how is this good news for me? Well, I am very excited to have the opportunity of teaching the CLEP College Mathematics preparatory class @eduFire! This class will run for 10 weeks, with two sessions per week. It will cover the entire CLEP College Mathematics syllabus and include plenty of practice with exam questions so that students are really well prepared to take the exam. It will use a wide variety of online materials and communication methods to give students the best support possible in achieving this 6 credit module. All this will cost just $400 for the full course plus around $30 dollars to cover the course text book and CL EP exam guide.

So .... things are looking rosier all round, for me and for students. There is even a free overview class early in the new year where students can come and have a look at me and find out more about the full course. If you are interested in an inexpensive, effective and enjoyable way to earn college credit, please do come along. Looking forward to meeting you :-)

Slow Progress

2009-10-31T23:55:00.005Z

... well you only get out of a blog what you put into it ... and this one has been sadly neglected ... possily with good reason. It is proving pretty difficult to make an online living and I am going to have to start pedling much harder to get this boat moving ...

Online Tuition at eduFire

2009-07-11T22:33:00.014+01:00

Internet based tuition has actually been the most successful of my attempts to make a living online. I registered with a live video learning site called eduFire. As a tutor, you can set your own pricing for individual session, and also you can set up classes and teach many people at the same time, again with your own pricing structure. You get paid weekly for individual sessions and most classes, but for 'Superpass' classes, payment is monthly.

I live in North Wales, but I have mostly been teaching 1:1 Latin Sessions virtually in America. My student and I use webcams and we can see each other and talk to each other and we can also share presentation slides or even let each other see what is on our computer screens. We also use googledocs to work on translations together. There are technical hiccups now and then, but in general it works really well. I have had a small but steady income over the last few months so I am very happy with it.

I haven't really tried multi-student classes yet, but I really should! A new Superpass system has been brought in recently and I think it will lead to much bigger attendance at classes and, hopefully, more revenue for tutors. Basically, students pay a subscription each month and take as many Superpass classes as they want in any subject at all! It's a fantastic deal if you really want to learn languages or any of the many other subjects available there. You can even take a one week trial for $1.

I am teaching Maths, Latin, Ancient Greek and Essay Writing skills so, if any of that is of interest to you, you could check my profile.

Do look through all the other classes and tutors too - there is an amazing amount of choice and it is a very warm and friendly community. You can set up a student and / or tutor account for free and have a good look round. The forums are a great way to get to know people and to find tutors whose personalities are likely to suit your learning style, or to find student who may be interested in your subject(s).

Now I really must go and plan some classes that will be of interest to lots of students! Do comment here about how you get on at eduFire and let me know if you have any helpful hints to boost my own success there.

Quick Success with Book Depository

2009-07-06T14:33:00.006+01:00

Well that didn't take long!!! One order for two books on the second day of being an affiliate. I'm really pleased :) Everything went through smoothly and I now have £2.27 in my Book Depository kitty. Hooray!

It is a bit fidly to see what books were sold but if you use the product numbers to search on the Book Depository site, you can soon find out what (and possibly guess who :-) it was.

Thanks very much anyway - you know who you are ;-)

Book Depository Affiliate Scheme

2009-07-04T08:41:00.016+01:00

So.... one of my good friends recommended a book to me sending a link to the Book Depository. I checked the price against Amazon and found the Book Depository a bit cheaper, and they were offering free delivery worldwide!

That made me look into the affiliate scheme and it seemed very simple and attractive.

It had:

flat rate 5% commission
really rapid sign up
30 day cookies (any purchase within 30 days of clicking link earns commission)
a sub-affiliate scheme (if you sign up another affiliate via your link, you get a small amount of commission on their sales)

I signed up immediately. I had to submit my main website url (as usual for similar schemes) but approval came within seconds and I was posting links here and on Twitter within minutes.

If you would like to sign up, please do so via this link:

Book Depository Affiliate Signup.

That will mean you are a sub-affiliate of mine :) and we can rejoice over your commission together (you will still get full 5% commission).

It looks a good and attractive scheme. I will update on how it performs as sales (hopefully) start coming in :)

Amazon Changes

2009-06-30T07:27:00.004+01:00

There have been some change to Amazon Associates terms and conditions - you have to register separate accounts if you make direct links to Amazon from a blog. However, I believe it is ok to link to an existing Amazon store from a blog. So.... I have removed the direct links to the Amazon site, but you can still buy Amazon products from the links to my stores (on the right) and click through to the whole Amazon site from the logo at the top right of my stores.

Posterous - Another Social Media Toy to Play with ....

2009-06-26T02:50:00.015+01:00

I've just found posterous

So I am writing this post by emailing it to my posterous account!

It's all very easy:

Type the email,
click send ....

and look at that, it appears on your posterous blog :-)

Not only that, it can appear as a Tweet with a link to posterous, or on any other blog -like this one. There's integration with Facebook too....
This is going to take a lot of investigating, but I see great potential here and the tone of the site is lovely ....

Go and give it a go :)

PS I am adding a gratuitous picture - just because I can ....

Networking on LinkedIn

2009-06-21T12:58:00.010+01:00

LinkedIn is a social networking site for business professionals - a bit like Facebook but without the fun. I have been signed up there for quite a while without seeing any real benefits, though my LinkedIn profile does come up pretty high in a Google search for my name. Also, I have linked up with some real world acquaintances and received and sent recommendations, but no new business has come my way from LinkedIn.

However, I recently started following @problogger, Darren Rowse on Twitter. Among other things he has written a 'Six-Figure Income' blogging book which you can order here through Amazon in the USA or UK and a newer downloadable one you can get here.

Darren has started up a new LinkedIn group for professional bloggers and this looks like being a very useful source of information for would-be professional bloggers everywhere. The first thing I learned from it was that there is such a thing as a professional blogger - you can actually get paid to work as a blogger! There are jobs and everything .... I am sure I will learn much more...

So... if you are hoping to make money blogging, it is worth a look at LinkedIn and the Professional Bloggers Group.

Pay Per Clicking

2009-06-19T22:11:00.008+01:00

I am very grateful to all those who have followed up the Google Ads (top) or used the Google search and clicked on the ads that provides. I am slowly inching up to $10 for clicks and searches, at which point I will be able to nominate a bank account into which I can pay my 'income'.

I am wondering under what circumstances one might ever earn any sort of living in this way, and failing to come up with an adequate answer ...

However, I have found some new leads to explore and some more experiments to try .... nil desperandum eh?

Using AdSense

2009-06-15T09:50:00.018+01:00

Well business in my bookselling world is a bit slow at the moment and I have had a bit of bother with Amazon (of which possibly more later ....) so I have been looking into Google Adsense.

To join this scheme, you register here or, if you have a 'Bogger' blog, just follow the Monetise link from your dashboard. You can start up a 'Blogger' blog from here.

You need a blog or website - I chose this 'Blogger' blog for mine - and you need to wait some days for Google to check it out before they accept you onto the scheme.

The idea is that you give a section of your blog over to Google Ads - you can chose where this goes and how big it is and whether you want text or text and images. Google chose adverts that fit in with the kind of content you are blogging (or putting on your website) and display them in this space. You are not allowed to click on these adverts yourself, but you attract commission per click for anyone else clicking on these adverts.

So....

Ideally

... you would have a really interesting blog

... you would attract lots of interested readers

... Google would provide ads matching the interests of your readers

... they would follow up the interesting ads

... you would get commission

... everybody happy :))))

Well, you can see my Google Ads area at the top of my right sidebar. Does the advert interest you? (It changes periodically so I don't know what you will see.) If so, please do go ahead and click it :)

There is also a Google search box set up on the right of this blog. You can use that like any normal Google search and you will get the normal Google results along with some sponsored links. Again, if you click on a sponsored link, I will get comission.

So far, not too many clicks have come my way, but I think that this is because I need to work harder on items 1 and 2, the really interesting blog with lots of interested readers ... (thinks: 'I'll go off and Tweet about this post to try to bring some in'). Lots to learn still - very grateful for any advice :)

Beautiful bit.ly

2009-06-07T09:26:00.013+01:00

If you are going to make best use of Twitter's 140 characters, you aren't going to waste them on including long hyperlinks, though you may well want to link to sites. The answer is an URL shortener. There are quite a few of them:

http://bit.ly/

http://is.gd/

http://www.tiny.cc/

and the list could go on much longer, but I have only really used bit.ly. I used it by accident really because it is the default url shortener for Seesmic Desktop. I just used it in Seesmic to shorten URLs....

But, after a suggestion from Koichi, I signed up with bit.ly and now look at this!!!!

I get a list of the URLs I've shortened and the number of hits on each. And... I can post to twitter from here sharing the bit.ly links too!

And if I click on 'info' I get ....

A lovely little graph showing me the number of hits on the shortened URL per week or month and .....

ta da.....

A real time graph of hits on the shortened URL!!!!

Ok, that's enough exclamation marks but I have now spent many a happy hour posting tweets of my shortened URLs and watching the hits come in - what joy!

It really is good fun and immediately lets you evaluate the effectiveness of your tweets.

This discovery has been the highight of my week, though I suppose I do live a pretty quiet life :)

Digging Deeper into Twitter

2009-06-05T22:36:00.007+01:00

Well now, Twitter obviously has strong marketing potential in that you can contact an amazing number of people quickly .... though actually, unless you make a real effort, most of them are going to ignore you.

Also, you are going to be following people so that you know what is going on, but if you are going to follow them effectively, you need some helpful software to let you view incoming tweets in a close to coherent way.

I started out using TweetDeck: http://tweetdeck.com/beta/

This is great actually. You can have a column for replies, one for direct messages, one (or more) for groups of friends, one for search results, you can even get a word cloud for the most popular words being used on Twitter. It also lets you see what is happening on Facebook.

But .... it doesn't let you view multiple accounts (or didn't at the time of writing this). So, I switched to http://desktop.seesmic.com/, yes that is Seesmic desktop, however differently you want to spell it! This lets you do more or less everything Tweetdeck did but it also allows multiple account handling - great! By the way, if you hover over the avatar / logo of another tweeter, you can reply, direct message, retweet them etc. It took me days to notice that!

So now I have the technology to monitor incoming tweets and build twitter relationship - just need a bit of practice at interacting and getting the balance between interesting and potentially lucrative tweets right. If I keep tweeting links to my sites, followers will soon get bored. I am starting to learn a lot by following some interesting tweeters though...

Getting into Twitter

2009-06-04T00:46:00.013+01:00

Well you do have to do it, so sign up here. Twitter is a must-do for any advertiser nowadays. I started with a personal account but soon realised a business account was necessary too, so that I didn't clutter up my personal communicatons with business tweets and vice versa.

The basic idea is that you 'tweet' messages of less than 140 characters. These appear in the 'timeline' which shows all the tweets in the 'twitterverse' in the order in which they are posted. They also appear in the 'twitter stream' of all the people who are 'following' you, so what you tweet is seen both by those who observe, or search, the worldwide timeline and by your personal 'followers'.

The name of the game is to make interesting tweets and to pick up interested followers.

The great thing about having a Twitter account and an online store is that you can post product or page links on Twitter and have them picked up by your 'followers' and the rest of the world, some of whom will hopefully make purchases that earn you comission.

I learned a lot about gaining followers by attending a free eduFire class from a Twitter guru called Koichi. Actually, I tutor on eduFire myself but that's another story...

First sale via amazon.com

2009-06-02T22:21:00.005+01:00

Just after I made my last post, I found I had actually made my first ever sale at amazon.com, through My Favourites (USA) store. This is what it was: first USA sale.
Was this after a Twitter tweet?
Was it driven through a blog or website?
Well actually, I don't know as Amazon don't tell you who the buyer is (data protection and all that). However, I would bet quite a lot of money that this sale came from a personal recommendation I made to an American Facebook friend. So.... I am beginning to realise it is best to start with your friends. They know you. Hopefully they trust your judgement better than a stranger will. It's hard to ask friends to go out of their way to help, but I hope I would do it for them :)
By the way, you can't buy from your own amazon stores, so, if any friends reading this have a store, send me a link and I will return the compliment :)

Being an Associate

2009-06-02T19:13:00.003+01:00

There are plenty of Associate / Affiliate schemes on the web, but I spend a lot of money on Amazon so I thought I would try to get some of my investment back by sharing their profits. You can sign up here: Amazon Associates UK or Amazon Associates USA. You get a percentage of the sales made after going to Amazon through your stores or links, whether what is eventually bought was in your store or not, though the comission is higher if a customer purchases the same product that led them into Amazon. You can a list of my stores and some examples of search links on the right of this blog.

I had to have a website already (of which more later) and I had to give them some idea of the market I would be targetting. I said Classical Studies at the time, though I have since widened that to include Leonard Cohen and the Just So Stories, among others, so I don't think they mind much. I started by putting links to individual products in my Classical Latin website, but soon realised it would be much more efficient to make an Amazon store. This is reasonably easy to do but I would recommend turning on the 'associate stripe' option (in your Amazon associate account settings) as this makes it very easy to add things to your stores or sites. This store-building escalated as I targeted different niche markets and now I have the following stores:

My Favourites (UK)

My Favourites (USA)

Classical Studies Favourites

Plato's Symposium

I have the Classical Studies Favourites embedded in my Latin website and I also have a link into my Plato's Symposium Store from my Plato's Symposium Blog.

So far, the Classical Studies Favourites has made one sale to someone who came in via my Latin website reading recommendations. I have also made quite a few sales through my My Favourites (UK) thanks to a couple of good friends who always buy their Amazon purchases there. However, I have no sales at all in the USA yet - you need a separate affiliate agreement to sell there, by the way - and I think I may need to pay them an administration fee if I don't sell something within the year! It is pretty difficult to drive traffic through your stores or links unless you have lots of good friends who don't mind remembering to go in through you, or a steady niche market who want what you recommend. So.... now I am working on building up that stream of willing purchasers, and in later posts I will tell you what I try and what, if anything, succeeds.

Making an online living...

2009-06-02T12:14:00.001+01:00

So, I am starting out in trying to make a living online.... I have been selling as an Amazon associate for the last couple of weeks and have made about £26 for about 40 hours work (including setting up a Twitter account and tweeting). This is not a great hourly rate :) so today I started looking at Adsense - Google put relevant ads on your blog or site and you get paid for clicks... we'll see how it goes ....

Meanwhile I am going to post links and articles about things I have found useful to my business ....

So what do I have to say?

2009-04-01T11:26:00.000+01:00

I have some websites and a twitter account; I am on FB .... so what do I have to say with a blog?
Not much yet :-)