Virtual Teaching Assistants are a sought-after commodity right now. Overworked teachers are screaming out for help, and luckily, there’s a dedicated army of skilled and talented individuals ready to jump to their aid.
The Need for Tech Skills
What skills make you stand head and shoulder above the rest as a Virtual Teaching Assistant? Experience in the sector? Absolutely, being able to understand the needs of both the teachers and the students helps you deliver work that meets their needs.
Tech skills? Oh yes! Whether it’s to create fantastic resources, manage your service delivery, or drum up new business. Tech Skills are the second tool in the VTA toolbox.
And it’s for that reason we’re looking at the top four tech skills a virtual teaching assistant should know. Some of these skills are helpful for all teaching support, and some more relevant in our ‘new normal’ COVID times, but even when we eventually return to more normal times the use of blended learning has advanced so far in 2020, that technology will remain a cornerstone of teaching moving forward.
Like it or not, we are even more cast in the online world than ever. So let’s jump on board the tech train. See what I think every virtual teaching assistant should know to help their business grow. There are courses for everything nowadays. Thankfully, online learning has advanced. We don’t have 2 hours to watch a video about using a new system with 157 different features. And places like thevirtualsavvy.com have courses in heaps of tech skills that could be useful to you. Ta-da! They seem to understand that I have 10 minutes to learn the top features I will actually need. Not more than 2 hours to learn about 140 others I will never, ever use. If you fancy upskilling, it’s worth a look at what they have available: https://TheVirtualSavvy.samcart.com/referral/QEHRbXcU/2mZ7A5Jywx1UtyqJ
So back to it, my top four tech skills for VTAs.
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Video Skills – Shoot, Edit, Upload
Teach online the teachers were told, record your lessons, and upload them for anyone who’s missed out they were told. Eh, excuse me? Do what? I can just about get myself on Zoom and chat to the class now, but make videos too that are going to help my students? This is the reaction from many teachers to this, and where there’s an absence of knowledge – there’s a gap in the market for someone to fill it. Virtual Assistants can offer services using systems like Adobe Premiere Rush to make videos for teachers or to edit their lessons so that they can be uploaded as short recap lessons.
Videos are best digested in short 5-10 minute sessions, so why not offer your services to edit lessons and instructional sessions for teachers so that they can get on with the teaching side of things and leave the technology to you.
Those video skills will come in handy when you’re growing your virtual assistant business too, not only can you use them for the work you are charging for, but you can use them to demonstrate your skills, to upload videos on your freelancer sites, website, social media to showcase what you can do.
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Video Communications – Zoom, zoom, and more zoom
Assisting teachers can come in lots of different shapes and sizes. Most recently, the increased take-up of virtual teaching assistants is due to the change to online learning. It’s a whole new thing to most teachers, and they won’t necessarily have the skills to know what teaching resources and programs will work best for delivery, or how to set things up on zoom for example. Well, that’s where you come in, if you understand your video communication platforms inside and out you can help your clients understand how to use the systems, you can be paid to support them during their teaching sessions or you can advise them on what resources to use depending on what platforms they are using.
The more you know, the more they will put their trust in you to design fit for purpose resources and provide fit for purpose technical support when they need it. The aim of the game here is to become a ‘go-to’ person for the teacher, if you have all the knowledge they need technically on the platforms they use, then you can become indispensable, and that’s where repeat business and retainer clients come from…so get savvy with your zoom and your skype and all the other variations out there.
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Graphic and Design Layouts – Look good, feel fabulous
One of the great demands from a virtual teaching assistant is the ability to create all singing and all dancing resources that look professional. Programs like Canva are ideal to help you with sophisticated layouts, great graphics and help you produce work that looks less teacher and more graphic designer – and let’s face it, if you can do that, you can charge more for it!
Gone are the days when students are entertained by a black and white cartoon image illustrating as an icebreaker to a new concept. Students are watching CGI movies, playing video games with the most realistic imagery. If you want to engage them, your images must be sharp, professional, and on point. Tools like Canva help you do that. They’re also a huge time saver! You need to get smart and use technology to help save you time. Do it BEFORE you get busy and have lots of people coming to you to build training materials for them. Work smarter, not harder.
Once you get your profile and portfolio up and running too, this will make sure you look head and shoulders above the rest, like you are the only Virtual TA they should come to!
So, the first three of my top four tech skills are skills that I think will set you up to deliver work at a high standard. This will help you build great resources and provide your clients with invaluable knowledge and support to navigate their classes…and in a post-covid work, they will still be looking to use the technology that the kids are now used to, whether that’s through flipping classrooms or more remote learning, who knows – but we’re unlikely to go backward in our virtual world.
The next is more for you to build your business successfully as a Virtual TA.
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Social Media and Email Marketing – New clients are a click away
Now you have the skills to sell, it’s time to find the clients. There are a number of freelancer sites that you can set up on, you can build your own website, but you will also want to use social media to market your skills and services. From Facebook pages to LinkedIn, Instagram to teaching forums…there are lots of opportunities to promote your services, and getting a grasp on social media is key to reaching as many people as possible.
Don’t have time to update seven different social media sites every day? I’m with you, but thankfully there are social media management systems that can do it for you. You can set up timings for posts to go out, you can link all your systems up. There are systems out there to help you with it all. Or perhaps you want to use something like Mailchimp, an email management system, so you can email all your past enquirers or clients to drum up new business.
Like social media or not, there is no avoiding it…this is the marketing tool of the moment, but the best bit about it, is it’s free!
And once you’re flying, web development could be next (it’s not as scary as it sounds, I promise!). But one step at a time, these are my top four tech skills to get you going.
Whether you’re techy or not, there are so many online courses now. Picking up new skills is becoming much easier. Not picking them up? Well, it’s leaving people behind. If you’re interested, why not have a look at something like The Virtual Savvy? You can pay a monthly fee (no subscription, cancel anytime). Do as few or as many courses as you like. Options include video editing, professional design layout, project management, and email marketing. Here’s a link to have a look:
https://TheVirtualSavvy.samcart.com/referral/QEHRbXcU/2mZ7A5Jywx1UtyqJ
Each training session is short. It doesn’t take long to learn the new skills. It also doesn’t take long to decide that’s not for you and move on to the next. There are lots on there.
