Been attending sessions by Meri Aaron Walker about online methods to get paid for our expertise. Meri coaches teachers about those issues.
MAWSTOOLBOX.COM
There’s also a LearnHub “course”: Jumpstart Your Online Teaching Career.
Some notes, on my own thinking about monetization of expertise. Still draft-like, but RERO is my battle cry.
Some obstacles to my selling expertise:
Despite all these obstacles, I have been thinking about selling my services online.
One reason is that I really do enjoy teaching. As I keep saying, teaching is my hobby (when I get paid, it’s to learn how to interact with other learners and to set up learning contexts).
In fact, I enjoy almost everything in teaching (the major exception being grading/evaluating). From holding office hours and lecturing to facilitating discussions and answering questions through email. Teaching, for me, is deeply satisfying and I think that learning situations which imply the role of a teacher still make a lot of sense. I also like more informal learning situations and I even try to make my courses more similar to informal teaching. But I still find specific value in a “teaching and learning” system.
Some people seem to assume that teaching a course is the same thing as “selling expertise.” My perspective on learning revolves to a large extent on the difference between teaching and “selling expertise.” One part is that I find a difference between selling a product or process and getting paid in a broader transaction which does involve exchange about knowledge but which isn’t restricted to that exchange. Another part is that I don’t see teachers as specialists imparting their wisdom to eager masses. I see knowledge as being constructed in diverse situations, including formal and informal learning. Expertise is often an obstacle in the kind of teaching I’m interested in!
Funnily enough, I don’t tend to think of expertise as something that is easily measurable or transmissible. Those who study expertise have ways to assess something which is related to “being an expert,” especially in the case of observable skills (many of those are about “playing,” actually: chess, baseball, piano…). My personal perspective on expertise tends to be broader, more fluid. Similar to experience, but with more of a conscious approach to learning.
There also seems to be a major difference between “breadth of expertise” and “topics you can teach.” You don’t necessarily need to be very efficient at some task to help someone learn to do it. In fact, in some cases, being proficient in a domain is an obstacle to teaching in that domain, since expertise is so ingrained as to be very difficult to retrieve consciously.
This is close to “do what I say, not what I do.” I even think that it can be quite effective to actually instruct people without direct experience of these instructions. Similar to consulting, actually. Some people easily disagree with this point and some people tease teachers about “doing vs. teaching.” But we teachers do have a number of ways to respond, some of them snarkier than others. And though I disagree with several parts of his attitude, I quite like this short monologue by Taylor Mali about What Teachers Make.
Another reason I might “sell my expertise” is that I genuinely enjoy sharing my expertise. I usually provide it for free, but I can possibly relate to the value argument. I don’t feel so tied to social systems based on market economy (socialist, capitalist, communist…) but I have to make do.
Another link to “selling expertise” is more disciplinary. As an ethnographer, I enjoy being a “cultural translator.” of sorts. And, in some cases, my expertise in some domains is more of a translation from specialized speech into laypeople’s terms. I’m actually not very efficient at translating utterances from one language to another. But my habit of navigating between different “worlds” makes it possible for me to bridge gaps, cross bridges, serve as mediator, explain something fairly “esoteric” to an outsider. Close to popularization.
So, I’ve been thinking about what can be paid in such contexts which give prominence to expertise. Tutoring, homework help, consulting, coaching, advice, recommendation, writing, communicating, producing content…
And, finally, I’ve been thinking about my domains of expertise. As a “Jack of All Trades,” I can list a lot of those. My level of expertise varies greatly between them and I’m clearly a “Master of None.” In fact, some of them are merely from personal experience or even anecdotal evidence. Some are skills I’ve been told I have. But I’d still feel comfortable helping others with all of them.
I’m funny that way.
Domains of Expertise
French
- Conversation
- Reading
- Writing
- Culture
- Literature
- Regional diversity
- Chanson appreciation
Bamanan (Bambara)
Social sciences
- Ethnographic disciplines
- Ethnographic field research
- Cultural anthropology
- Linguistic anthropology
- Symbolic anthropology
- Ethnomusicology
- Folkloristics
Semiotics
Language studies
- Language description
- Social dimensions of language
- Language change
- Field methods
Education
- Critical thinking
- Lifelong learning
- Higher education
- Graduate school
- Graduate advising
- Academia
- Humanities
- Social sciences
- Engaging students
- Getting students to talk
- Online teaching
- Online tools for teaching
Course Management Systems (Learning Management Systems)
- Oncourse
- Sakai
- WebCT
- Blackboard
- Moodle
Social networks
- Network ethnography
- Network analysis
- Influence management
Web platforms
- Facebook
- MySpace
- Ning
- LinkedIn
- Twitter
- Jaiku
- YouTube
- Flickr
Music
- Cultural dimensions of music
- Social dimensions of music
- Musicking
- Musical diversity
- Musical exploration
- Classical saxophone
- Basic music theory
- Musical acoustics
- Globalisation
- Business models for music
- Sound analysis
- Sound recording
Beer
- Homebrewing
- Brewing techniques
- Recipe formulation
- Finding ingredients
- Appreciation
- Craft beer culture
- Brewing trends
- Beer styles
- Brewing software
Coffee
- Homeroasting
- Moka pot brewing
- Espresso appreciation
- Coffee fundamentals
- Global coffee trade
Social media
Blogging
- Diverse uses of blogging
- Writing tricks
- Workflow
- Blogging platforms
Podcasts
- Advantages of podcasts
- Podcasts in teaching
- Filming
- Finding podcasts
- Embedding content
Technology
- Trends
- Geek culture
- Equipment
- Beta testing
- Troubleshooting Mac OS X
Online Life
Communities
- Mailing-lists
- Generating discussions
- Entering communities
- Building a sense of community
- Diverse types of communities
- Community dynamics
- Online communities
Food
- Enjoying food
- Cooking
- Baking
- Vinaigrette
- Pizza dough
- Bread
Places
- Montreal, Qc
- Lausanne, VD
- Bamako, ML
- Bloomington, IN
- Moncton, NB
- Austin, TX
- South Bend, IN
- Fredericton, NB
- Northampton, MA
Pedestrianism
- Carfree living
- Public transportation
- Pedestrian-friendly places
Tools I Use
- PDAs
- iPod
- iTunes
- WordPress.com
- Skype
- Del.icio.us
- Diigo
- Blogger (Blogspot)
- Mac OS X
- Firefox
- Flock
- Internet Explorer
- Safari
- Gmail
- Google Calendar
- Google Maps
- Zotero
- Endnote
- RefWorks
- Zoho Show
- Wikipedia
- iPod touch
- SMS
- Outlining
- PowerPoint
- Slideshare
- Praat
- Audacity
- Nero Express
- Productivity software
Effective Web searches
Socialization
- Social capital
- Entering the field
- Creating rapport
- Event participation
- Event hosting
Computer Use
- Note-taking
- Working with RSS feeds
- Basic programing concepts
- Data manipulations
Research Methods
- Open-ended interviewing
- Qualitative data analysis
Personal
- Hedonism
- Public speaking
- GERD
- Strabismus
- Moving
- Cultural awareness