"The average salary of a person who lives in the United States and works in e-Learning is $78,436"
http://www.elearningguild.com/research/archives/index.cfm?action=viewonly&id=135
High School US teacher average salary is not more than $50,000
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/All_K-12_Teachers/Salary
I was curious to see whether there is a salary difference for those tutors that use e-learning. In fact, there is a big difference in salary in the US. These two US websites show a discrepancy between e-learning tutors and teachers. I presume that such a salary compensates for the tutors commitment, availability, experience, level, etc.
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Heh! Quite surprising! Hope my conclusions are correct. For this reason, before suggesting what's next and what MCAST should do on e-learning, I suggest that a private study is carried out to analyse salary trends and differences between those that use traditional teaching methods, e-learning teaching methods or a combination of both. I haven’t noticed any blog on this matter. IICT lecturers do you use teach using e-learning methods? Is there any allowance for using such systems?
ReplyDeleteI would assume that the responsibilities of an e-learning tutor would be more demanding. The tutor would have to create the on-line material as well as keep up with correspondence for each student.
ReplyDeleteBy default E-Learning requires more individual attention, thus the tutor would have to dedicate more time outside of the classroom.
Added to that the e-learning tutor would have to keep up-to-date with the technology used and therefore might require regular training.
With regards to eLearning jobs I personally do not know whether e-learning lecturers get paid more or less than normal lecturers, but as these articles show there seems to be quite a bit of discrepancies. The question that arises after reading such articles is: Is it really worth to be an e-learning lecturer?
ReplyDeleteAs Frankie has suggested it is justified that people teaching e-learning are paid more as the amount of work required is much more. E-learning courses are much more demanding and it is obvious that such lecturers have better remuneration. The tasks that need to be carried out are much more time consuming and the fact that one has to be available almost 24x7 is stressful and therefore this needs to be compensated.
are you sure that e-lecturer must be available 24x7? I think that your view on the commitment is a pessimistic one. I agree with all comments that an e-tutor needs to prepare more due to online content. Moreover, I think that e-tutors are paid more since the same material will cater for more students. Hence, I don’t think that online courses have a limit in number of participants.
ReplyDeleteApart from the considerable difference in average wages between US (recession probs?) and Malta which no one seems to be concerned with, the issue of e-learning tutors wages and traditional teachers wages proves to be an interesting one.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that we are already differentiating traditional teaching methodologies and e-learning styles already implies that there is a difference in the way these two jobs are carried out, therefore resulting in different job descriptions.
Although the mentioned articles refer to the wages, they do not mention any differences in job descriptions. So, we can only speculate in our discussions. Previous blogs have already mentioned that e-learning tutors might be requested to provide feedback 24x7. From my experience through a distance learning course, tutors rarely provide feedback at night or during weekend/holidays. Having said that, I do not know if they are employed as lecturers or specifically e-Learning educators.
I would expect e-Learning tutors to earn more because they are knowledgeable in both their area of expertise and e-Learning technologies and methodologies, making them more valuable in today's working environments.
To answer Ken's initial question: Yes, at IICT we do use some basic (Moodle mainly) e-Learning tools, but no we do not get allowance for it.
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Christian Calleja
IICT Lecturer
I agree with Christian's comments regarding e-Learning tutors being knowledgeable in both teaching as well as e-Learning technologies and methodologies - hence being more employable and therefore earn a better wage.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that such people are employed 24x7. I would not agree that they be employed 24x7. The difference in approach to teaching takes up more time as lecturers from IICT can explain.
Irrespective of the details explaining the big discrepancy between the two wages quoted by Ken, I guess that the wage would be a very important bargaining tool in any educational institution's favour in order to create an incentive for its lecturers to shift towards an e-Learning style of teaching.
Needless to say, since everyone would be interested in earning a better wage so this would need to be balanced by a thorough system of accountability to ensure that lecturers really deliver the goods that what would justify the pay-rise.
Andrew I do agree that elearning teachers have to be conversant with both the conventional teaching methds and the now emerging elearning methods.
ReplyDeleteI must claim to differ though that eleraning tutors will not be expected to be on the job 24x7. Students around the world expect to get the same efficient service. therefore if our students happen to be in different time zones this can create situations where we will be answering to querries 24x7.
another important factor which cannot go unnoticed is that today we might have a class from 15 to 30 students. How much will we have with elearning?
Probably double the wage will not be enough!