The academic labor market is undergoing huge changes as a result of the decrease in funding for public education at all levels from the state level and the implementation of distance education technology at the post-secondary level. The traditional educator clinging to the physical classroom is highly unlikely to continue earning a decent living, or earning any living at all by delivering instruction to students. The fact of the matter is that online adjunct instructors, those academically prepared and technically adroit individuals that understand that distance education technology has forever changed the academy, have the best chance of earning a decent living from teaching new and returning college students. The fact of the matter is that these college, university and community college students are quite accepting of the idea of earning an online masters degree in education, a criminal justice associate degree online or a registered nursing degree online by using their personal computers to access the online college courses within an online bachelor degree program or online master degree program.
There can no longer be any doubt that the personal computer and the Internet have had a huge impact on the academy. The academic administrators are positively giddy over the prospect of being able to meet the educational needs of the ballooning student bodies with less expensive technology that allows them to deploy multiple online college degree programs. The educator with a graduate degree and the ability to navigate the Internet should have no real problem acquiring as many online college classes as is desired in an online teaching portfolio. In fact, there is no reason that a traditional adjunct instructor now teaching on a physical community college or university campus couldn’t create a blended teaching schedule that incorporates both physical university classes and a handful of online college courses. In fact, that would be an excellent hedge against the possibility of being laid off from the physical academic institution. The idea is to be able to teach online for multiple accredited distance learning programs because the result of the current dislocation of faculty at every level of the academy will be a reorganization of public education in a digital form, and this is especially true for post-secondary instruction. Within the next decade it will be possible to earn all or most of any academic degree from a personal computer.
The best way to begin developing an online teaching schedule with six to eight online classes in it and to join the small number of online adjunct instructors that already enjoy a healthy stream of online adjunct income is to go directly to the websites of the over five thousand colleges, universities and for-profit colleges and start submitting applications to teach online for them. Currently, it is prudent to expect to spend about six months to a year making applications for online faculty positions before expecting to receive a positive response from an online degree program. Granted, the invitation to teach online may come sooner, but patience is a big factor in the entire process of joining the existing online teaching faculty.
May 3, 2011
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