education learning

corporate

government public service

adult content

English

_ga_TGMTN6CHNZ

_gid

Within the commercial generic top-level domain (.com), 'masterteachingonline.com' is registered and has no subdomain. Count 20 characters in 'masterteachingonline' holding 8 vowels versus 12 consonants. Segmentation suggests 3 words: master, teaching, online. The median word length lands at 6 characters. No strong language cues emerged from the frequency lists.

FNAME

LNAME

EMAIL

yikes-mailchimp-honeypot

yikes-mailchimp-associated-list-id

yikes-mailchimp-submitted-form

yikes_easy_mc_new_subscriber

_wp_http_referer

html/c2/6c/c26c8899-a0aa-4a0f-a56c-7fa0260454c1.html.gz

require-trusted-types-for 'script'; report-uri https://csp.withgoogle.com/csp/apps-themes

script-src 'none'; form-action 'none'; frame-src 'none'; report-uri https://csp.withgoogle.com/csp/scaffolding/ascnsrsgac:225:0

script-src 'none'; form-action 'none'; frame-src 'none'; report-uri https://csp.withgoogle.com/csp/scaffolding/ascnsrsggc:171:0

script-src 'none'; form-action 'none'; frame-src 'none'; report-uri https://csp.withgoogle.com/csp/scaffolding/ascnsrsggc:139:0

e44e2ef89b580c6ba335cac1389b1507908751906530bd0586e25806dafe3742

6ec9ad9ed218a19751fe52e6bbadeec4e59934ab939da28b2cf80115409d25ae

a6a4e7261db8c71eed7c439d33d2b69605f51547b671880b159b5a2491c3c4be

f1a61277e3f902f50ab42015d8b07218db9b7601bb0967e54a52bfdcb4fa7e81

9d0ce2d1e8bb050886c39e2b3b818531402d045bab76ef3e8852c0467e898d61

2cdefa8892ea5180bb06b79131c773d8e1b376ca5e4540354f39ff1e6c7b87c2

6719928c3943dc7cfc0945bb9f6954b9d600cb72aa275fd17159c365e70218e6

dba15c860ff13e5ff9feca19a459356b0f4350828300561f5fa949d12c0064c5

9719e3a8aa91840272d6c88aa8f76d86f3dffc2ce3413cc3c9f3c96f4128ae47

cb14c090e0f1c24b756b1eea4d287fbb3154b56218e495e3e16b063d5f071e0b

286067f7a25c701192b5af60c7fa42d47dc2929026e5a1655aafe093493ae71e

bf6e24e170e4282514b55c85522b3c5b37e09c5a8d5e7933a711b22f6ac2ed91

a27e42da9cad3b3d1caed4fc3310fdef2dbf1b280686b50d94671947c63ac968

16297f1af94669af74eda7d55ebf0958199e4d8420c58d0043e4cc62801d962c

84c47b45328919dc7718fefed954fe0871670892e965317398ca58f289c2ae27

link to How Do I Create An Online Training Or Teaching Website? Expert Secrets

How Do I Create An Online Training Or Teaching Website? Expert Secrets

link to What Are The Real Time Online Learning Pros And Cons

What Are The Real Time Online Learning Pros And Cons

link to How Can I Make My Online Lessons More Engaging? 8 Great Ideas I Use

How Can I Make My Online Lessons More Engaging? 8 Great Ideas I Use

link to What Are The Best Online Teaching Courses?

What Are The Best Online Teaching Courses?

link to How To Monetize Online Courses? 9 eLearning Pricing Models You Must Know

How To Monetize Online Courses? 9 eLearning Pricing Models You Must Know

link to What are the assessment methods in online learning? 14 Creative Ways

What are the assessment methods in online learning? 14 Creative Ways

viewport

robots

Your number one place to learn everything you need to know to make money teaching online!

description

onesignal

https://masterteachingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-Website-icon-512x512-transparent-300x300.png

msapplication-TileImage

html/c2/6c/c26c8899-a0aa-4a0f-a56c-7fa0260454c1_nodriver.html.gz

Master Training Online – Your number one place to learn everything you need to know to make money teaching online!

Bluehost Inc.

MASTERTEACHINGONLINE.COM

Abuse

Google LLC

GOOGLE


	  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
	  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
	  gtag('js', new Date());

	  
	  	  gtag('config', 'UA-128027740-1');
	  
	

Have you tried to setup or want to setup an online training or teaching website? Well then look no further as I will tell you exactly how in the simplest way possible. With over 20 years experience, let me share my expert knowledge with you.



Steps to setup a success training website:




Select SOE Domain Name



Get Region Based Hosting



Select CMS or Custom Website



Choose Monetization Method



Setup Theme &amp; Plugins



Upload or Create Training Content



Market Training Course



Setup Google Search And Analytics




There are many ways you can make mistakes where Google will not recognise your website or list your pages so setting it up with SEO in mind is critical so keep reading to learn more.



What Is An SEO Friendly training Domain Name?



Here you were thinking you just had to pick a domain name that was kind of cool but there is way more to it.  You clearly want something that tells people what your training business is but you also need to think about what people are searching on google as well.  Great domain names not only tell people what you do but get ranked in Google search as well.  



Because as we professionals know 80% of our traffic for new websites comes from search engines and we can clearly see that in our Google Analytics.  Only with mature websites do we see referals, social media and direct traffic balancing that out.



New Website Traffic Example - 68 / 86 = 79% Search Engine Traffic







Mature Website Traffic Example - 1100 / 1900 = 58% Search Engine Traffic







So do I have your attention now on how selecting an SEO Based Domain Name can help with early traffic and therefore sales to your website?  So how do you do this? At this point some of you will say but what about the big companies that have one word domains that are cool.  To that I say when you reach half a billion start thinking about a new domain name, but if it is a small to medium sized business you need every advantage you can get online.



Steps To Picking A Great Domain Name:




Pick A Trusted Domain Suffix



Looking For SEO Keywords For Your Domain Name



Record Common Keywords Of Searches



Search On A Name Registry Available Domains Using Combinations Of Those Words



Final Selection Checklist




What is a trustworthy domain suffix?



Simply where is your audience based and who are you selling too. If you are in the USA a .com is your go to domain suffix. If you are in the UK it will be a .co.uk and if you are in Australia it will be a .com.au. If you are trying to speak to the whole English speaking world, pick a .com as they have the biggest English speaking market.



The mistake is thinking that .com is the best for everything when if you are in a single country like Australia a .com.au is considered the most trustworthy as they have to have ligitimate businesses to purchase a domain there.  This gives trust for legal recourse if something goes wrong.  To buy a .com you don't even need a business setup.



To provide even more trust depending on the country a .edu for the USA, .ac.uk for the UK or .edu.au for Australia have special rules where you may have to be a registered training body to get the domain so this again provides more trust that you are a real organisation.



Does Having Keywords In Your Domain Name Help SEO?



Yes, yes and bleeping yes. I have personally seen traffic to homepages of websites with SEO keywords used in the domain have more traffic than most other pages in the website.  So picking a domain name that uses SEO keywords and then creating the business name to match is way more critical these days.  I personally pick my domains first and then see which business names match after I finalise my list.



So what are the ways I can do this and the simpliest is just let google tell you in the people also asked question section of the search.  You can do it through Google Ads and Google Trends to see what words are popular and that is a great second step.  Or you can use one of the many SEO keyword search tools but they are based on often old data.  So as simple as this sounds just search words around your training category and see what the average man also asks.



The trick is to do it in the country you are marketing too in an Incognito window in Chrome for instance or InPrivate in Edge and select the right country region.  This makes sure your previous personal search history does not flavour the results and you reach the right market.



Steps To Picking A Country In Google




Open Edge InPrivate or Chrome Incognito Tab



Go to Google.com



Change Region To Your Target Market

Go to Settings At The Bottom Right 



Then Search Settings 



Other Settings On The Left



Then Select Language And Region On The Right



Select Results Region



Then Select Your Search Country



Then just click the work Google in the top left of the page to start searching






















Now you can start searching for key words related to your search and watch the people also asked and write down the common words that come up related to your search and the questions common people ask as per the example below.  If you expand a single question in the People Also Asked section you will get more related questions.  Or just try different keywords in the google search.







Common words from the above search I would record are and how many times they are used are:




Trained



Training



Spacecraft



SpaceShip



Astronauts



Pilots




Do this for a few more searches and you will find the commonly searched words on google then try to use the top ones in your domain name for your training organization like a few I made below.




AstronautPilotTraining.com



LearningToPilotSpaceCraft.com



TrainedSpaceShipPilots.com




These are all a little tongue in cheek but you get the idea on how you can include SEO keywords that relate to real searches on google to help with early website traffic and that relate to the average persons search criteria.



FUN TIP: go to Trends.Google.com and see which of the words are trending up or down and compare them to each other as words or searches fall in and out of popularity.



Why Is Region Based Hosting Important To My Training Website?



Why does hosting based in the same location as a majority of your customers matter.  Well the simple answer is that Google Search grades your website on speed of response as a major factor to traffic aquisition amount many other things but responsiviness is way up there.  If you are choosing a host make sure if it is your first time setting up a CMS or Custom website you think of Security and Regular backups.



Most hosting companies will one click install Wordpress, Drupal, Moodle and many other CMS but they will not set it up for you and that is where the first time you will need a professional.  While I know how to do this having been in IT for 20 years you may not and it is wise to seek professional help because malware is real and will take down a website on a bad web host.



PRO TIP: While I know what I am looking for and use a premium hosting service in the USA called wpx.net your needs and country may mean a different host is needed.  If you need help selecting a host look at the bottom of this article for someone that can help you out.



What Should I Select CMS, LMS Or Custom Website?



When putting up a training website you will pick either a Learning Management System (LMS) or content management system (CMS) where you can make changes yourself or you will go down the path of a custom website.  LMS is just a specific version of CMS that has specific features for education. Custom websites have fallen out of favour for most businesses as it means you need a web developer on standby all the time.  And if you are ever thinking of selling the business then a CMS is the most popular option.



Educational LMS are normally Wordpress with an Educational Plugin or Theme, Moodle, Canvas or Blackboard.  There are open source versions of Canvas and Blackboard Learn as well as paid versions. If you are just starting out then Wordpress or Moodle are your go to LMS as they are free and when you start making the big bucks you can think of changing to Blackboard or Canvas.  Wordpress is not techinically a LMS but with the right plugins and theme it can be.



Why Choose A Monetization Method Now?



Unless you are a not for profit company you will want to make money from your training or teaching website and there are many ways you can do this. So why do we choose a monetization method here during our website setup? Because the theme and plugins required will then be determined by what monetization method we choose.  



If I choose membership style I will need to install and setup a membership plugin like MemberPress.  If it is a once off cost then you will need a payment gateway like Woo Commerce.  So this is critical to think about in the design of  and setup of the website.



Ways To Monetize Your Training Website:




Free



Monetized with Ads



Monetized with Affiliates



Once Off Membership



Recurring Membership



Pay Per Course



Pay Per Registered User



Concurrent Licensing



Monthly Subscription



Payment Plans




I discuss all of these me these methods in my article on it below.ARTICLE: How To Monetize Online Courses? 9 eLearning Pricing Models You Must Know



PRO TIP: Whenever this all sounds too confusing let a professional handle it and Ygor my friend who's details are at the end of this article is there to support your for your initial and ongoing support if you need it.



How Do I Setup The Theme &amp; Plugins



For SEO we need the least plugins and quickest theme as we already know that google search will judge the responsiveness of our websites.  So the trick is to get the functionality you need without slowing down the website too much.  Also the theme and plugins selected and how frequently they are updated is critical to your website security and protecting it from being taken down by malware.



If you are using Moodle the Learning Management System (LMS) is already set up for loading courses and you only need to think about security and backup as well as other exam or SCORM plugins.  SCORM is a format of zip file you can put a training package into from most eLearning tools like Articulate Storyline 360 where you can upload a single file into your website or many websites to host your training course.



If you want to know more about SCORM authoring tools check out this article:ARTICLE: SCORM Authoring Tools: With Resources And Demos Videos



Again if this is your first time and you would like a walk through or just have it setup for you check out my friend Ygor at the end of this article and he will sort you out.



How Do I Upload Or Create Training Content?



As all us trainers know this is the hards stuff and due to when we change LMS we all try to create our content in a SCORM compliant editor so we can single click upload our training course to any SCORM compliant CMS, LMS or Custom Website and this future proofs our work.  If you skipped the section above go up a couple of paragraphs to the SCORM Authoring Tools article link.



If you are using wordpress you can create it in the addins from your theme or the educational plugin and each are slightly different.  With Moodle there is a free video training course on their Moodle Academy website that walks you through content creation and website setup.  It does not however tell you the extra plugins for security and website backup.



Here is an article on all the eLearning content types I could think of and I am sure you will have more:ARTICLE: The Ultimate Guide to eLearning Content Types



Market Training Course



You spend thousands of hours creating your training content and setup and launch your website and then nothing but crickets.  Traffic is key and knowing what your customers want before starting is even more critical.  The easiest way to do this online is to start a blog on your training website and start answering questions straight from google searches about your topic.  



PRO TIP: Make sure you setup your browser for searching for these questions as Domain Name SEO section above or you will just be answering questions related to your own pas searches.



So why would you spend time doing that because you get a feel for what your customers want by the popular training questions you answer. And then create more professional paid training around that. 



So what if I just know it is an at need training requirement because I work in the industry and I just want to market my website.  First you need to be sure it is not confirmation bias but you could do the following.



Ways to market your website and training courses:




Google Ads



Facebook Ads



Instagram Ads



Answer Forum Posts - Redit etc



Youtube Ads



Create Tube Channel - training teasers



Link with influencers



Intro Course On Udemy




But if like me you like free then writing blog posts is the way to go but you need to write 10 articles a month for 12 months and you will have roughly 10,000 page views a month. And if you have a 3% conversion rate that means you would have roughly 300 training course sales a month.



If online marketing baffles you and you need some help the best training and one I have completed is from Income School.  They will teach you basic SEO, Wordpress website and Youtube channel setup.  They also have one of the most honest and open forums for members sharing their results and what worked and did not work. I renew my membership for that feature alone as there is so much nonsense out there on online marketing and I am a facts and figures guy. They share facts and figures in the forums and the training is very simple step by step to understand and all video.  There is plenty of support and you will never feel alone while completing it.



Here is my affiliate link to the website and I do get a small kick back but you will also see me in the forums in there and feel free to say hi.  By using the link you just let me know you appreciated the work I put into this article and website and you can chat to me there too about training websites as or on my LinkedIn on my about page.  They are not training professionals but online marketing professionals.



How to setup a Wordpress Website or Youtube Channel To Make Money with Income School



Why Do You Need To Setup Google Search Panel and Analytics



Well basically these are the things that let you know what searches your website came up in so you can get to know your audience and the analytics lets you know where on the website they went.  If you have a members only area you can also add on a plugin that does the private area statistics for you as well as required.



Here are the two links you need to set up to two features on the Google website:




Google Analytics



Google Search Console

Having taught online for many years I wanted to give you some insights on what to expect.  Here is my list of Pros and Cons.  I have also suggest solutions for each of the Cons to save you time and run better classes.



So here are the Pros and Cons of teaching a Live Virtual Classroom:



Pros




Global Audience



Highest Student Engagement



Relationship Building



Student Convenience



Cost Savings



Live Question &amp; Answer



High Speed Delivery



Highest Justifiable Revenue



Integration to Blended Learning




Cons




Technical Problems



Reading Body Language



Physical Presence



Environmental Distractions



Teacher Training



Cultural Differences



Language Differences



Time Zones



Class Sizes




So to be clear here we are talking about teaching Live Virtual Classrooms like you do in physical classrooms but online.  If you don't understand the difference between eLearning, Web Conferences and a REAL Live Virtual Classroom this article should explain it all for you.



ARTICLE: How can I Teach Online?



Now that you know what some of the Pros and Cons of teaching live online let me discuss with you some of my personal experiences with each of these topics.



Example Real Time Classroom Technical Setup







Pros



Global Audience



One of the greatest things of teaching live online is that you can pull your audience from across the world.  Providing classroom quality training on demand around the world has the potential to grow your business and teach more students.  



If you are teaching intermediate to advanced courses where there is a more limited pool of students than this style training is perfect for you.  You will see this style of training being use in Technology Online Coding Boot Camps which are leading he way in online education. 



Highest Student Engagement



Live Virtual Classrooms are the highest in student engagement as you have a live instructor with the ability for students to interact and ask questions.  You have remote desktop support for when students get stuck.  You have the ability to pair up students for social learning and peer engagement.  



All in an Instructor led session.  This blows away the engagement in eLearning and Web Conferences hands down.  Many times students have been amazed at the quality of training I have provided this way and have mentioned it not only to me directly but in the follow up student evaluations.



Relationship Building



Nothing builds rapport with students quicker than a live round robin introduction and group discussions.  Web conferences allow the teacher to be seen as a real person and also to become a trusted adviser.  This means in all future correspondence whether by email or phone you are already starting at a certain level of authority.  



Being able to spend some one on one time before or after class with students with "At my workplace" type questions in a fully interactive environment only increases this relationship building and adviser status.



Student Convenience



The ability for students to join the class from work or home from anywhere around the world is a great advantage.  It also means they don't need to worry about transportation, traffic, parking and the time to get too and from training.  They can choose the environment that they personally learn the best in.



Cost Savings



Student



If the student lives in the same town they still have transport or petrol, tolls and parking costs to and from the university and food costs there as well.  If they don't need to travel for specialised training they will have to pay for flights or transport, car hire, accommodation and other expenses.  There is also the saving of time and for those with children child minding costs.  When taking courses online all these costs can be avoided.



Business



There are heaps of costs you incur when delivering face to face training like Training Hardware, Rent, Catering, Printing, Electricity, Water, Gas and many other incidentals.  If you are delivering the training remotely to the customer then there is logistics, travel expenses, teacher overtime or higher pay.  



These all add up quickly and are a huge reason for moving your training online.  A further explanation of the expenses you might incur or to know more about mobile classrooms look at this article.



ARTICLE: Setting Up a Mobile Computer Classroom



Live Question &amp; Answer



One of the biggest problems with eLearning, forums and other similar types of training online is the time in which it takes for teachers or other students to respond to requests.  For anyone that has done any of these types of training at anything other than the introductory level this is a huge negative to the student speed of learning, experience, engagement and completion rates.  



The ability to ask a question during a live class and have it answered straight away or discussed with the class is a huge advantage of real time virtual classrooms.  Instead of a day or two turn around time on a simple question it is answered then and there.



ARTICLE: How Can I Make My Online Lessons More Engaging? 8 Great Ideas I Use



High Speed



Real Time Virtual Classroom training allows you to teach students in the quickest way possible of all the online teaching methods.  In a week training class I can personally introduce and get students to complete exercises on what would normally take them a whole semester (6 month course) at any other higher education facility.  



I know this from personal experience with many Vocational, University and Postgraduate courses I have completed over the years.  This provides the same level of content as a full 9-5 week of training to students except online.



Highest Justifiable Revenue



This style of training allows you to get the highest justifiable revenue for training.  The average in classroom daily rate for professional technical training is $500 USD to $1000 USD per student per day.  Often businesses will offer 10% to 20% discount for online training to sweeten the deal and encourage first time online students.  



Alternately for a class of up to 10 students for a single customer you can charge $5,000 USD to $15,000 USD depending on skill being taught.  These figures are based on Vendor training that is run every day by fortune 500 companies to their customers.  The prices will always vary depending on what you are teaching and what courses the training is built into.



Integration to Blended Learning



This style of training can be built into any Blended Learning delivery approach as Universities, Vocational Institutions or private training organisations as well.  It can take the place of standard tutoring sessions or even compressed delivery style sessions with projects and assessments due after the training.  This is a great way to make your training more flexible for modern workers with higher engagement.  



Some Universities use eLearning and Web Conferences.  While others force online students to come to campus for study blocks for remote students.  With current technologies this is a great supplement or replacement and introduces some more personal time with the lecturer or tutor.  As well as giving them the ability to support students live while in class.



Cons



Technical Problems



With technology always comes technology problems.  In the case of Live Virtual Classrooms you have multiple technologies that can give you problems.  I personally have found the technologies all very mature and stable technologies and is more teacher training issues then technology ones.  Disconnections will happen and you will have some technical issues occasionally as well.



Solution



 Provide adequate training for teachers on each technology and most of these problems will go away.  That and making sure you test your online classroom before training and the students have pretested their ability to connect.  It is also a good idea to forewarning students before they pay so they accept enrollment and pay knowing full well there could be technology issues.  Also at the start of class I always give the students a secondary communications path if they have issues to contact me on.  



Of the many online classes I have run I have not had to cancel a single one.  The most I have had to do is end training early for that day to sort out a problem and start the next day.  The times I have had to do that I can count one hand and that was typically issues outside of my control.    



Reading Body Language



As a classroom teacher I did initially find the absence of the ability to read body language a huge issue.  Assuming of course you are not doing live web cam feeds with your classroom.  If you are showing your screen to students without seeing their web cam feeds knowing just whether they understand what they are taught can be a problem.  So you have to over communicate with students in real time online classes to ensure understanding using active listening skills. 



Solution



You have to step up your active listening skills to constantly confirm understanding in the classroom.  You also need to watch the student screens for when what they say is not in correlation with what they are actually up to in the training.  This does not help you when students get frustrated but I find a one on one session before or after class and letting them know you are there to help often does. 



Example Classroom Management Software Interface








ARTICLE: What is live Classroom Management Software? Buyers Guide



NOTE : Remember that nothing beats a face to face classroom and sometimes you will still need them.  But this is the bet online alternative to that style of expensive training.




Physical Presence



Nothing is more effective then a teacher coming over and physically walking you through a problem.  Checking the non-verbal ques and body language for understanding and assuming a helpful and understanding posture, manner and tone of voice.  



Moving around a classroom also refocuses the students as you pass by each desk checking in on where they are at.  The level of activity of the teacher is also infectious on the students as well as a simple smile.  



Solution



You can display your web cam to students in a Virtual Classroom but I personally find it a distraction to students during the class.  If you leave your web cam running not only do you have to have a private space to work but you also have to watch the expressions you use while teaching.  



Maybe while introductions are happening at the start of the class have all the web cams turned on and then turn it off when things get serious.  This is one you will struggle a bit with when first teaching online and you may not be able to replace completely.



Environmental Distractions



If this students are taking the class from home with their family interrupting or at work with the boss popping in.  These and many other issues with not controlling the student learning environment can have on the students ability to learn.  



Solution



In the initial course acceptance email I normally mention these distractions to students as well as a few ways to stop them. Where possible shut and lock the door to room at home or meeting room at work and hang a sign training in progress.  Also get them to mark themselves unavailable on work calendars or tell family that when the door is shut they are busy and not to be disturbed.



Teacher Training



Training your teachers on the new technologies and getting them comfortable with using them on their own has always been an issue for me personally.  Typically these people were hired as face to face classroom teachers and may buck at moving to an online environment.  Often these psychological issues get blamed on the technology not working rather than the resistance to change and having to learn new skills.  



Solution



This can be handled with proper training, updating job descriptions and key performance indicators (KPI's).  When I first created my online real time training environments in 2013 I first let my trainers sit in on a course as a student, then as a co-teacher, then leading the class with a second co-teacher and finally on their own.  Depending on the IT skill of your teachers you may miss a few steps.



Cultural Differences



Along with the ability to teach globally comes the interesting issues of cultural differences.  I have taught face to face all over the world as well as online to students from all over the world since 2013.  I have made my fair share of mistakes when teaching to different cultures.  



Shaking a head side to side in India is a yes for instance.  That one I only discovered after thinking the class didn't understand the topic and attacked it from different angles trying to find a common frame of reference.  So how to you cope with this in a virtual training environment?



Solution



I have found most cultures are flexible with online delivery styles but merely putting a note in your course acceptance email about any special times or request they may have works for me.  I also repeat this at the start of class during the introduction and again when doing the round robin ice breaker.  I always let them know they can private message me in the chat at any time with requests as well.



Language Differences



Not everyone speaks English and for those in your classes that don't speak fluent English they could have huge problems.  Letting the students know what language the training will be run is very important.



Solution



I have nothing but respect for people that can speak multiple languages and I know their pain as I am currently learning Spanish myself.  When teaching online I include a note in my course acceptance email that the course will be run in English or whatever other language.  I also then at the start of class say exactly this:



 "During class if English is not your first language please tell me if I start talking too quickly.  You can ask me to slow down or repeat anything if you miss it via the chat.  Either to the group or private message.  I promise I won't get offended and would much rather you understand.  It is easier to catch up a few steps then half a dozen down the track"



Time Zones



This is always an interesting one and something you have to decide on with each class.  Are your students all from one time zone or are they from different time zones around the world and what do you do about that?



Solution



I know some businesses just say we run in our time zone and that is that.  I find that a very unprofessional way to run live online training.  They are paying you to teach them.  It is much easier for you to put yourself out and teach during the night then it is to put out 10 students if from a single time zone or region.  



The least you should do is vary start and finish times to suit where possible.  It also earns you points with your students when they find out you put yourself out for them.  They do appreciate it and you start out on the front foot straight away.



Class Sizes



While this is technically a con as part of all the other methods of teaching online it can also be seen as a pro for intermediate to advanced style classes.  Typically I run with only about 10 students in a single class when delivering in this style online.  



I have taught up to 20 students though but would not recommend it for a beginner to this style of training.  I would even say start with 5 students for your first class while you are getting used to the technologies and unique style of teaching method.



Solution



So how do you teach larger amounts of students in real time? You can have one instructor and additional support staff that have taken the training to provide student support.  Each additional support staff member can handle around 20 students in a support only mode so you can then scale the training up if required.  



You just need to let students know that when they have issues to ask in the chat and then two things happen.  First the tutor chimes in to nominate themselves to help with  the issue.  Then they notify the instructor either verbally in person or via private chat they are helping someone.  This also means your tutors don't have to be physically located with the teacher as well and can be remote.



Summary



We already established that nothing with technology yet can replace a live classroom experience but I am sure it is coming.  I believe the Pros and Cons with solutions will allow you to run almost the same as the real world experience.  I also think that the advantage of the reduced costs and global availability of training far outweigh the Cons.  



While this article is focused on adult learning and not Kindergarten to Grade 12 (K-12) it does not mean it could not be used for distance education as well.  If you use it for K-12 you need to also consider the social skills, morals and other life lessons real world schools and teachers provide.  This is outside the scope of this article but there are ways these things can also be replaced.



What Next?



Now that you have looked at the Pros and Cons of teaching Live Virtual Classrooms take a look at this article on some tips and tricks for your first online class.



Article : 15 Practical Tips for Teaching your First Online Class

With much more online training it is critical you make your training more engaging for your students. In this article we will discuss 8 tried and true ways to increase engagement and therefore overall student retention and completion rates.



The most effective ways to make online lessons a lot more interesting are:




Web Conference Study Sessions



Social Learning



Assign Interactive Tasks



Divide The Course Into Shorter Lessons



Include Real-World Equipment



Add Competitions With Rewards



Flip Your Classroom



Include Gamification




Let's dig into these and I will give you examples of each one you can use in your own online classes.



Web Conference Study Sessions



Post Covid most training organisations are now delivering their lectures on web conferences like Zoom or Webex but they have not replaced what used to be student tutorials.  Why not set up web conference access for your students to use as study groups with a tutor just like real life classes.  



That way they feel more involed and engaged and have another session to ask questions of a different instructor to clarify understanding.  As we all have had instructors that we just don't understand or are unable to speak at our level so this also solves that problem.  The feeling of isolation is one of the most common reasons why students drop out of online courses.



If you are not yet decided whether to use live meetings to teach online, I recommend you to read the following article:



ARTICLE: What Are The Real Time Online Learning Pros And Cons



If you want to conduct live classes with your students, there are three important aspects you want to take into consideration:




Equipment needed



Software tools



Meeting Guidelines




Equipment Needed



To take part in an online audio-video call you need to have several pieces of equipment. The mandatory hardware is:




Laptop or Computer



Webcam



Microphone




You want to ensure a high-quality lesson for your students. Therefore, you must use decent equipment. I strongly advise against using the built-in webcam and microphone. Spend some extra cash to get a dedicated webcam and microphone. The quality will be improved significantly.&nbsp; You can see the current Webcam I recommend and use on the Recommended Tools page.&nbsp; The current recommendation has a builtin microphone with noise-canceling.



Software Tools



You can host a live meeting with your students using different software. The most popular applications that are designed for online web conferences&nbsp; are:




Skype



Google Meet



Zoom



Webex



BigBlueButtonBN (integrated into the LMS Moodle)




Meeting Guidelines



The key to a well run live training session is some quick rules that will ensure everyone enjoys the session and what you are trying to teach gets conveyed to students.&nbsp; I have run hundreds of online Web Conferences and full Virtual Classrooms and here are some of my tricks.



Basic Guidelines for Online Meetings




Let the students know when and how to ask questions



Encourage them to chat with each other in the chat feature



Let them know they can use the group audio on breaks



Let them know to respect others thoughts in class



Let them know timings



What to do when they have technical issues



Engaging is how everyone learns more




For more of these tips check out this article:



ARTICLE: 15 Practical Tips for Teaching your First Online Class



Social Learning



Social learning is a method that allows students to learn from their peers. This has been proven to increase engagement and decrease the sense of isolation that comes with learning online.  Whether you are using the tools in your Web Conferences or setting up places where students can connect with each other this is critical to their learning journey and whether they complete the course.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIlwGYY0_AA




During online classes, this can be achieved using a wide variety of software tools, such as:




Forums



Live Chats

Text



Audio



Video






You can learn more about social learning and its advantages by reading the following article:



ARTICLE: Engaging Students Online with Social Learning



Forums



Forums can be successfully used when your students are living in different countries and are in different time zones. You need to have a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the length of time forum questions will be responded too. This guarantees the students of timely responses to complete their studies.



IMPORTANT: We all get lazy and don't just use the forum as a frequently asked questions area actually engage instead of leaving the students on there searching for answers.  Sometimes they don't know what they are looking for and that just frustrates them more.  Don't be one of those teachers.



If you encourage your students to engage in global or industry forums maybe give them guidelines on how they should be used.&nbsp; If you build one into your Learning Management System (LMS) then at least you have full control and the topics are strictly related to what you are doing.



The most well-known forums you can ask your students to join are:




Quora



Reddit



LMS-Integrated forums

Moodle



Blackboard






Live Chats



Apart from being a great method to bring all your students together, live chats are a great social opportunity as well. There are various options when it comes to hosting a live chat room that we will look at below.



Text



Text chats are better than forums and allow students to discuss current topics in the course.&nbsp; There are tools like the phone app tools located below where students can start their own study groups and ask each other questions.&nbsp; As well as the ones students set up for themselves you can also have ones you make as the teacher where they can ask you questions any time when they are studying and you can answer straight away.



The most popular live group text chat software is:




Messenger (Facebook)



WhatsApp



WeChat




Audio



Group audio chats require a little more organizing to schedule them so everyone is there but they are great for teamwork when students are regionally separated. They allow things to be organized a lot quicker than they would with a text chat and it is more personal and you can hear tone and inflection so you know how they are feeling.



The most commonly used applications for live audio chats are:




TeamSpeak



Discord



Skype



Whatsapp




Video



Webconference video meetings where you are not sharing a desktop is the best tool for doing this and post covid we have all experienced these now and know what they can do.



Assign Interactive Tasks



One effective way to make sure your students do not lose their interest in your course is to get rid of the boring assignments. Whether you choose online or offline assignments you can mix things up for your students so every assignment is not just another 3000-word essay.



To increase engagement and student buy-in you can provide them with assignments they are excited to do.&nbsp; If you are not that creative I have prepared a list with the best 27 interactive assignment ideas for online students that you can read.



Divide The Course Into Shorter Lessons



We all know teachers love the sound of their own voice right?&nbsp; Well, at least that is why I am a teacher.&nbsp; When in all seriousness we need to keep our training short and to the point.&nbsp; We have gone from lessons that are hours long, to one hour, then to 30 mins, and now to 15 mins or microlearning.&nbsp;&nbsp;




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlbsuPAibfY




The concept is to pack in everything they need into small sessions they can do on the train or on a break at work.&nbsp; It also allows time to think about each concept or topic and then move on to the next one when we are ready.&nbsp; I have not seen many courses that have not been broken down in this way.&nbsp; This also allows students to cherry-pick what they want to learn when they need it.&nbsp; So just in time learning.



MIT Research revealed that the most effective length for educational videos is under six minutes. You know what that means. Cut your one-hour-long training video into shorter lessons.



To learn more about the best course length and how you should optimize your classes, check out the following article:



ARTICLE: How Long Should an Online Lecture Be?



Include Real-World Equipment



With technology getting smaller why not build into your course some real-world equipment that is small enough for you to ship to them or they can buy online or locally to them.&nbsp; If you are teaching programming use an Arduino circuit board.&nbsp; If it is cooking get them to record themselves backing a cake.&nbsp; You get the idea!



What if the equipment is too big to send to the students or is too expensive for them to buy?&nbsp; Simple, just buy it yourself and set it up for remote access with a schedule students can book into use accoss the web.&nbsp; Place a few cameras they can use to see what is happening and add a little automation equipment if required for them to interact with it.



The more students get a chance to touch and feel things the more certain types of learners will engage and the better information is retained when using multiple of our five senses.



Use Competitions With Rewards



Who doesn’t like the thrill of matching wits with other students in competition with the chance of a real reward at the end of it?&nbsp; Cash is always a great reward but quickly forgotten.&nbsp; You should provide the students with experiences instead that they will remember a lot longer.



You can have simple competitions like the first 3 students to complete up to a certain part of the training or the first to solve a problem.&nbsp; For these simple competitions, you can give online gift cards.&nbsp; Then group competitions for major projects.&nbsp; Maybe for the best project and another for the most creative.



For the bigger competitions maybe a jet boat ride for the team or concert tickets or any other bigger price items that provide real experience.&nbsp; New laptops or tablets are a very cheap option these days as well as smartwatches.



Flip Your Classroom



The concept of ‘flipped classroom’ has become quite popular.&nbsp; Students learn the material online self-paced and lecture times and tutorial times are combined into a single session to discuss what they have learned.&nbsp; This is generally led by the professor instead of by a tutor to give much better engagement.&nbsp; You can do that online with web conferences as well.



Include Gamification



From simple games built inside your eLearning software, simple quizzes up to real games built as independent software. Gamification can be as simple as also providing points for completion of tasks that are not formative or sumative assessments.  Instead of gifts for attending training maybe get bigger gifts to give out through the training instead.



While not a content type but more a concept, the idea of gamification or adding game-like elements to your training is always an option. There have been some very successful educational gaming apps like DuoLingo for language learning as a free version and lots of paid versions as well.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOssYTimQwM




What people generally include are leader boards with badges and points but you can go way further if you want too.

Before you create your course online you need to decide how you will monetize your training from once off payment to reaccuring subscriptions and more. Let me walk you through all the different ways you can make money from your training courses and tutorials.



Here are the pricing models you can use to make money on your online course:




Free



Monetized with Ads



Monetized with Affiliates



Once Off Membership



Recurring Membership



Pay Per Course



Pay Per Registered User



Concurrent Licensing



Monthly Subscription



Payment Plans




Now that you know what ways you can monetize your training let's dig into these and get more specific on exactly how you might set those up with your course.



1. Free



If you are running a non-profit or you are running community service training or just don’t want to charge for a course you can give it away for free. You may also just give the training away for free to generate traffic to monitise later through one of the other pricing models below later.  There is plenty of free training on different subjects out there on the internet.



Here are some example of free training available on the web:




Khan Academy



Free Code Camp




Are free online courses actually free? You may be surprised though that while some seem free it is monetized with ads and/or affiliates.&nbsp; So therefore the person making the training still earns an income from creating the course while you get the training at no cost other than seeing a few ads.



We will discuss the ad and affiliate pricing models in the next two sections.



Ways to host free trianing content are: Courses on YouTube, Courses on Content Management Systems (CMS) (like Drupal, Joomla or Wordpress), On your custom website, Or a Learning Management System (A specialist form of CMS like Moodle).



Advantages: &nbsp;Cheap to set up for the cost of cheap hosting and a domain name or getting a free Wordpress website or free website from other website hosting companies.  Great way to build an online audience to then change to a monetization model later when you have traffic to your site.



Disadvantages: You will pay the small costs for the ongoing maintenance.&nbsp;The time creating and maintaining your training content will be where the major effort is.



2. Monetize with Ads



How do you monetize learning? The simpliest way is to put ads into your training content. Most people start with Google Ads which pays the least of the ad networks but will let you start with very little traffic and then when your traffic grows you can go to professional ad networks for better income.



Here are some ad networks you can use:




0 to 10,000 - Google Adsense - $1 to $5 / 1000 page views



10,000 to 100,000 - Ezoic - $10 to $50 / 1000 page views



100,000 and up - Mediavine - $20 to $100 / 1000 page views




There are heaps of ad networks out there these days and be careful to test them before committing as they will slow your website down and that will affect you website traffic growth.&nbsp; So getting decent traffic is always the best advice before including ads and you are aiming for over 5,000 page views per month.&nbsp; The second thing is that not all ad networks are as honest in reporting or commissions as they may seem.&nbsp; The ones recommended above have good industry standing and can definately be trusted.



IMPORTANT: There are certain topics in the YMYL (Your money or your life) that the ad networks won’t go near like sex, guns, finance, medical. If you are a certified expert in Finance or a Doctor they will put ads on your website or otherwise you are likely to be rejected. This is a google adsense restriction where all the ad networks as well as having their own network of advertisers also big on google adsense as well.



NOTE: The amounts above are only indicative of what you may get and depending on your training course category you may get way more or way less depending on the supply and demand of advertisers and how much they are willing to pay.&nbsp; You can browse these in Google AdSense and see how much you would be charged for each category as a minimal ad revenue guide.&nbsp; Keep in mind it won’t show you the competition in that area.



3. Monetize with Affiliates



An Affiliate sale is where you recommend a product or service in your training material that you generally use and suggest for the people taking your training or in your industry.&nbsp; If someone clicks on that link and purchases that product or services then you get a kickback just like if you were a salesperson selling that product for the company themselves.&nbsp; This is very common and there are heaps of companies that offer affiliate programs directly or through an affiliate network.



You will often see Affiliates used in conjunction with Ads on most websites where the ads provides the base income and affiliates adds the extra mostly bigger income if marketed correctly.  It is easy to get a conversion of around 3% to 5% of traffic to purchase through an affiliate link and more depending on whether you create a product page and even training around their products or service.  



How do I affiliate an online course? To add affiliates to your online course simply integrate their link into your training in an appropriate place and sell the link.  If you want to be more advance make it a link to a product or servcies page on your website and sell it even better by adding value like a training video on how to use and and explain what value it has to your customers.



Here are some Affiliate Networks you can check out:




ShareASale



ClickBank



FlexOffers



Pepperjam



Rakuten Advertising (formerly LinkShare)



CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction)



Amazon Associates



eBay Partner Network (EPN)




NOTE: Amazon Associates used to be a popular affiliate but with them scalping sales and lowering commisions all the time there are much better affiliate networks to be part of to get higher percentages.



4. Once Off Membership



There are lots of websites that will charge you a normally high price once-off membership payment for access to all the training and resources on the website.&nbsp; This style of payment is where they get access to a set amount of content like a training course and a community of peers. You will put in a lot of effort upfront to create the content and then you will just do basic maintenance and admin of the website.



How do I start a membership course? You can use one of the many platforms like Kantra, Uscreen, MemberPress or Memberspace.  My advice is to own your site by buying a domain name, getting wordpress hosting and adding the memberpress wordpress plugin.  This way you can fully customise your costs and course without restriction.



PRO TIP: You can use someone on Fiverr to set this all up for you and my recommended person to use is Ygor Silva as he does great work and has helped me personally with many websites before getting on fiverr.



Advantages: This is simple to manage and with the higher price membership you can add more value for your members.&nbsp; You will have to make sure the training and resources you provide are of the same value as the membership for people to value it.&nbsp; Once you have created the content you will generally go low maintenance and just update this material.&nbsp; Your members won’t expect more content as it is a single payment for access.



Disadvantages: You need to keep marketing your website as your revenue only comes from new sign-ups. So it is good to know your Customer Acquisition Cost on this one that is a lot less than your membership fee. Especially if you are using Google Ads to market.



5. Recurring Membership



This method of payment is similar to the payment method above but with one slight change.&nbsp; You will be charging normally a yearly or monthly membership fee.&nbsp; This will change the expectations of the customers.&nbsp; Firstly you are not charging for access to a set amount of content like above you are charging access for the initial and extra content you will add each month or year. Creating and being active in a members only forum is critical so have value for these types of sites normally.



Advantages: This means you have a steady income with yearly renewals happening every month and to increase your income you just need to attract new members.&nbsp; For this one you are looking at the new signups vs leaving members and as long as you are gaining more than you are loosing this is a great model.



Disadvantages: Every year for members to stay you will have to show you are providing more value to them.&nbsp; You will have to engage with your members and make sure they are feeling they are getting real value from your products and/or services.



6. Pay Per Course



This has to be the most popular model for training delivery online due to its simple nature.&nbsp; You pay for a course and you get access to that course.&nbsp; With so much competition though and normally hosting your content on eLearning platforms you lose the ability to price and discount your training.&nbsp;



You also are at the whim of the website you put your content on.&nbsp; Websites like Udemy and Skillshare own your audience.&nbsp; This is great if you want them to do your marketing for you, but they will charge you for it and strictly control your pricing and how you deliver your content.



The alternative is for you to set up a similar website like this of your own where you can get people to pay per course as well. This will mean however that you will have to market the website yourself and build your audience. You could simply do this on an LMS like Moodle or with any of the CMS products like Wordpress, Joomla, or Drupal.



Very few people create a custom website anymore because it adds a layer of complexity to when you want to sell your business as well the initial and ongoing maintence costs.&nbsp; It means they have to hire a web developer for changes or to have those skills themselves.



Advantages: Students only pay for the courses they want.&nbsp; You can keep creating courses to build a library of them to sell to students and if you host them yourself you can set the value of the training course yourself.&nbsp; It is a lot easier if you use Udemy or Skillshare if you just want to concentrate on content and students but you give up pricing and they own the students.



Disadvantages: There will be a lot more marketing if you are selling multiple courses and you won’t be able to charge as much with the current expectations for most online training being at $10 to $20 USD per course.&nbsp; To get a hirer price per course you need to add more perceived or real value to the equation.



7. Pay Per User



This is common with big companies or whole educational institutions like universities where they will register all of their staff for access to the training material and pay per head regardless of whether they access the material or not.&nbsp; 



You will see this as enterprise licensing on websites like PluralSight or Udemy as well as many other websites.&nbsp; This style of access is normally in line with corporate requirements to provide staff with opportunities to add courses to their Professional Development Plans (PDP).



If a single-user access to the website is $30 a month for instance then corporate get a bulk discount for enrolling all of their staff and may only pay $100 per year for each staff member.&nbsp; This wholesale pricing in this model is normally based on large student or staff numbers.&nbsp; Another website that is well known for doing this is LinkedIn Learning (formally Lynda.com).



Advantages: This means you will be aiming at the big fish and a few customers with many enrolments will be a huge amount of revenue for you. You can still have another payment model for single users coming directly to the site.



Disadvantages: You will have to have a lot of training courses to entice those big fish and this is normally done only when a website gets to a large enough size with a reasonable amount of content.&nbsp; Losing a single large customer can mean a huge change in revenue.



8. Concurrent Users



This is not a pricing model seen much in the educational sphere but more by software licensing and still  worth a quick discussion.&nbsp; Instead of having huge amounts of enrolments to manage you could give a company access to your training with only 10 users at a time for instance.



They may have 1000 employees but only the first 10 get access for example, and until one of them signs out another user can not log in.&nbsp; You can see why this is not as popular as you could earn much more with the pay per user model above.  



You have to think of how you manage the concurrent users and why go to that effort when a simplier more profitable model exists. The only reason I can think for this one is high priced per user access costs for specialised training.



There are specialist scenarios where you may only have 10 real-world physical training kits they can use so you are limited to 10 concurrent users. If they wanted more users at a time you may have to buy more equipment. You could manage this scenario with an access schedule or a little custom code that gave people set time frame access like an hour before kicking them out for the next person to have a go.



Advantages: &nbsp;Great for specialist training scenarios.



Disadvantages: Limits your income so you would have to charge more.



9. Payment Plans



If you have a high priced course that is a large up front payment normally like vocational or university courses this is a great option for your students.&nbsp; It is also great for private training companies that are teaching someone how to be a specific job role like the many online programming bootcamps.



These types of large cost courses need to have a big outcome for the student and it is not just an impulse buy like you might do with a low-cost pay per course scenario.&nbsp; They often come with an employment guarantee or skill set that matches a real-world job.  They often give a government or industry certification or qualification.



You can pick a payment plan that suits the income of your students to make the payments more palatable so as to increase your enrolments.&nbsp; You can even get paid upfront for this style payment by handing the management on the debt over to the payment plan provider. These are different in each country but if you just search for “credit card payment plan provider” you will find them.



They pay you the course fee minus their fee and will look after the debt from there with the student.&nbsp; Or alternately they will manage the installment payments and just let you know if they don’t pay.&nbsp; For small training businesses, this gets rid of the headache of chasing debt and managing payments this can have.



There are also plugins for Content Management Systems (CMS) and Learning Management Systems (LMS) that will handle this for you as well like in the WooCommerce plugin.



Advantages: Great for large courses where there is real-world job value or training value for the students and it allows you to even out your income over many months rather than having huge payment months and some with no income at all.



Disadvantages: Managing the payment plan and what you do with students that complete the training but fail to pay the rest of the payments.&nbsp; Or never start and want refunds.&nbsp; You need to be very careful about your refund policy on these styles of payments as they are large sums and can be effected by each countries local laws.

When you have online students how do you test or assess them?  This article will explain the different formative and summative methods you can use right now to get real results.



Summative Methods of Testing Online Students:




Remote Exam Invigilation



Online Exam Invigilation



Online Exam Systems



Text Chat



Voice Chat



Video Chat



Virtual Classroom




Formative Methods of Assessing Online Students:




Peer Evaluation 



Assignments



Quizzes



Forum Posts



Online Class Participation



Live Chat Participation



Team Collaboration Tools




Now that we have looked at the methods of testing and assessing your online students lets dig in deeper and look at some tools you may use to do this.



What is formative and summative?



Notice that above I broken down the methods of assessing students into formative and summative methods.  The difference between them is that Formative assessment as we know is how you gauge students knowledge during the training to see how they are progressing.  Summative is the testing you complete at the end of the training as a final result of how much they have learned.



Just like when we are teaching in the classroom these two methods are still important when we are teaching online.  Most online educational institutions will use both to provide a bigger picture of the students understanding of a subject.  This is also used by teachers to guage the effectiveness of the learning materials and engagement that are so critical when teaching online.



Summative Methods



Remote Exam Invigilation



Remote exam invigilation is where your online students can sit and exam in a physical location at a location and time of their choosing with a third party with real life invigilators that can ensure proper test conditions.



Is your exam so important that you want real world human monitors for online courses then here are some of the ways you can do that.



Here are 5 remote exam invigilation options:




Educational Institution Invigilation



Certified Invigilators



Testing Centers



Industry Professionals



Industry Bodies




Educational Institution Invigilaiton



Most educational institutions will provide invigilation services for other universities, vocational training and businesses at regular times throughout the month. So once you know where students are located you can contact a local school, university or vocational college and they can conduct your exams for you specifically to your needs or with their standard invigulation rules.



Certified Invigilators



You can use industry certified exam invigilators that have undergone their own training and certifcation to host your exams.  They can then provide one on one exam monitoring services for you.  The student can book in their exam directly with the person and then they can come to their home or office to monitor their exam.



Here is a link to an exam invigilation training and certfiication organisation in the USA as an example:



LINK: The Exams Office



Testing Centers



There are multiple global networks of testing centers like Prometric and Pearson Vue.  They provide local exam invigilation and computer based exams for students.  The student can pay them directly for an exam sitting or you can provide the student with exam vouchers and include the price of the exams in their student fees.  These types of centers are favored by the big tech companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and many more.



Industry Professionals



If the exam is more practical in nature and you want to see whether a student can complete a given task then you can use already certified industry professionals to monitor and assess their current skills.  This is a favored method of apprenticeship style training.  For example the pracical components of becoming a chef , plumber or electrician.  This can be done by their boss or another certified industry professional and with skills assessment can even be filmed in case further assessment is required.



Industry Bodies



Most industry bodies like the American Society of Civil Engineers provide practical and theory based assessment as well.  So if you are looking for whether a student has gained the knowledge during training then getting their license or certification with one of these bodies could be another method of assessment.



Online Exam Invigilation



There are heaps of online proctoring software that you can use independently and also as plugins for Learning Management Systems. Some commonly known companies providing this type of software are ProctorTrack and ProctorExam.



Online Exam Systems



When you want to use an online exam system there are ones that will suit whatever website you have from a Learning Management System (LMS), Custom Website to hosted on a third party website. Let's discuss each of these in a little more detail with examples.



LMS Plugin



Whether you are using Moodle or another Learning Management System (LMS) or even a Content Management System (CMS) like Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal.  There are plugins tools that allow you to do online examinations.  An example of a plugin for Moodle is the extension to the quiz module called Exam.



Link : Moodle Exam plugin



Third Party Exam Websites



There a many websites with exam systems that you can load your exams into and they do all the rest.  They allow for large amounts of students to access the exam at the same time and can integrate to your LMS, CMS or custom website.  Some of these providers are QuestionMark, Exam Builder and Easy LMS.  They normally also provide reporting on your exams as well.



Website Addons



With your existing website you can extend your website with a forward slash exam or survey tool like Lime Survey.  Lime survey is open source so it free for the CE version if you install it on your own website.  They will charge you for their PRO version which just means you host on their website.  There are plenty of other tools just like Lime that you can try just search for website survey tools.



Text Chat



While not the ideal method of doing an exam it is great for people with speaking difficulties.  You could ask them a question at a time and then dig into their answer for further understanding.  You don't know whether they are google answers or having a friend take the exam for them.  But if this was a more strict exam type you could include a 360 degree webcam and computer screen recording as well.



Voice Chat



If you have spoken to the student before and know their voice this is a simple way to administer an exam if somewhat time consuming.  Using WhatsApp or Skype or Facebook Messenger you could administer a verbal exam.  Great for language studies and for pre course language proficiency testing as well.



Video Chat 



Whether you let them use a standard webcam or a 360 degree webcam this is a great way to test students for many practical tasks.  Or you could use a mobile phone on a stand positioned to watch them complete a task.  Since everyone has a mobile phone now this is a great method for assessing students.



Web Conference



Web Conferences like Cisco's Webex or Zoom are great ways to assess students.  You have access to an audio chat, webcam and text chat as well as allowing them to share their screen so they can demonstrate a particular task.  You can record your screen with screen casting software while the examination or student demonstration is happening for proof they passed the task.  Most Web Conference software also includes a record feature that you could use as well.



Virtual Classroom



Not only can Virtual Classrooms be used for teaching live online but you can also use them to monitor multiple students taking a practical exam or test.  The classroom management software build into the setup allows you to monitor each students work.  The audio conference and webcams in the web conference allow you to monitor them as well and talk with them when needed.  To understand how Virtual Classrooms work check out this article.



Article : Creating a Live Virtual Classroom



Formative Methods



Peer Evaluation 



Peer evaluation is one of the favorite formative assessment methods of online MOOCs like Coursera. This means the teachers don't need to assess every student as they progress and can see more what the different groups are doing and help those that need more support.  This allows the students to compare the quality of their work to others and get ideas for future formative assessments. This form of assessment gets students to think deeper about the subject and come with more thought out questions to the teachers.



Assignments



Just like in the real world you can get students to submit an assignment.  But because we are now digital don't forget most students have cameras and microphones on their phones so include video and audio in assessment items.  Like an interview of an Industry Professional or recording themselves completing a task with a mobile phone stand in the real world.  Or even a screen capture of them completing a computer based task.



Quizzes



Quick quizzes are a great way to check instant understanding of the concept or topic you have just introduced.  If you are using eLearning then you can build these into your eLearning package and use SCORM to report it back to your LMS.  Alternately you could use an LMS plugin like Quiz Activity in Moodle to do the same thing.



Link : Moodle Quiz Activity



Forum Posts



While forums have fallen out of favor for their inability to properly engage students and due to very poor search capabilities and monitoring.  If you have a forum still you can have students post to it as a form of assessment. A much better solution is a more social networking type tool like Slack if you want paid or Rocket.chat if you want open source for free.



Online Class Participation



If you are using Web Conferences or Virtual Classrooms then you can assign marks based on participation to them.  If you are using a virtual classroom the classroom management software that is part of them allows you to do polls and quizzes to students and then display the results to the class.  Obviously the results can be anonymized but the teacher can see the real results.



Live Chat Participation



There are multiple types of online chats and here are some that you could use.  You can then give the students marks on participation in these tools.




Chat Apps



LMS Plugins



Team Collaboration Tools




Let's discuss each of these in a little more detail so you understand them better.



Chat Applications



You can use WhatsApp, Skype or Facebook Messenger and similar tools to conduct online text chats at specified times for students to talk with each other and discuss this weeks training material.  Once students are added to the group it can remain open for them to continue talking to each other about the subject or course.  If you want to know more about Social Learning Online read this article.



Article : Engaging Students Online with Social Learning



LMS Plugin



There are mutliple types of chat tool plugins for LMS or CMS websites.  You can use these to have the chat built into your own website so you are forcing them to log in as students.  This means you have better tracking of student behavior and own the student experience.  Here is a list of the chat tools available in Moodle.



Link : Moodle Chat Plugins



Team Collaboration Tools



As we mentioned earlier tools like Slack and Rocket Chat are a great way to create online communities for your students.  This allows them to not feel isolated and you can assign marks for participation or for when they successfully answer other students questions.  



This social learning is an important piece of your online training story.  Slack is a paid option and Rock Chat is free and open source if you host on your own server.  If you wish to host your Rocket Chat with them they will charge you for this service. The use of these tools can factor into your formative assessment marks as they post and show their understanding of topics and help other students.



What Next?



Now that you know some of the ways to assess your students online how about looking at some creative ways to survey your students online?



Article : Creative Ways to Survey Your Students

Requests	IP Address	Location	AS Autonomous System
10	142.251.140.163	United States	AS15169Google LLC
6	142.250.201.72	United States	AS15169Google LLC
6	172.217.20.138	United States	AS15169Google LLC
6	104.16.160.145	United States	Unknown
6	92.113.23.56	Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany	AS47583Hostinger International Limited
34	5	-	-

Security Scan Report: masterteachingonline.com

Summary

AI Security Verdict

Safe Website

Safety Factors

Details

Screenshot

Page Load Overview

Language Analysis

Primary Language

Detection Details

Website Classification

Primary Category

All Detected Categories

Detected Features

Domain & IP Information

Detected Technologies7

Content Similarity HashesFor malware variant detection

TLSH (Trend Micro Locality Sensitive Hash)

ssdeep (Context Triggered Piecewise Hashing)

sdhash (Similarity Digest Hashing)

Image Hashes

Perceptual Hashes

Other Hashes

Scan History