This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Today's caller is developing a guide to help parents and teachers with distance learning. You might be familiar with distance learning. You might be all too familiar with distance learning, especially if you're a parent or if you're going to school. Funny enough, millions of people are all learning or not learning how to learn when you're not in a classroom. Who would have guessed at the start of this year that just a few months in, all of us would stop going to school or stop going to work, begin working remotely, going to school remotely, all those things.
Don't you wish you had bought stock in Zoom a year ago? Probably would have been an even better investment than hand sanitizer. Well, here we are. And this is of course a major challenge, a major challenge for teachers, for parents, and of course the students. So our caller today hopes to make it a bit easier by sharing tips and tricks and best practices.
I think this is a really good idea. It's certainly timely. How can you get this guide to market quickly? That's what we're going to talk about in this episode, how to quickly get to market with a distance learning guide. It's coming up after this quick message from our sponsor.
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Hey Chris, this is Cody from Salt Lake. I just started listening to the show earlier this year. I've really enjoyed the content. I'm an educator and I've recently been outlining a distance learning guide to help all the parents and teachers who are still adjusting to the world of Zoom education. Everyone is frustrated about it.
It's not easy, but there are a few things that you can do to make it a little bit better. I wish I'd started this six months ago, but I'm not sure we knew back then how long this would last. So I want to know what's the best path to get it to market quickly and what decisions do I need to make for that? So thanks Chris, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you. - Hey Cody, thanks for the call.
And indeed, everyone is frustrated. I've been hearing about it all the time. I know so many of our listeners are affected in this way, distance education. If you're a student, now you're not going to a classroom. At least a lot of students aren't.
If you're a parent, now all of a sudden you're a homeschooling parent. Whether you want it to be or not. And of course, if you're a teacher, there's tremendous adjustment there as well. So I empathize. Now what can you do about it?
I love that Cody is solution focused. He also asks a really good question, which is what decisions do I need to make? This is a great question to ask whenever you have an idea. You're like, what do I actually need to decide? Because often we get stuck, not just out of indecision, but out of, I don't know which decisions I need to make.
So great question, very helpful. I'm reminded of this YouTube video I saw, how to use Zoom. And this video has something like 2 million views now. The guy who created it had made a bunch of other tech friendly videos, how to use this software and such. And some of them did pretty well.
But by pretty well, I mean like 10,000, 20,000 views. And of course, the how to use Zoom one now has 2 million views. So there's definitely a lot of interest in this. And distance education is not just how do you use a technical platform. There's so much more to it, of course.
But I know that there's interest. That's the point. So as for starting six months ago, well, yep, that would have been nice. But here we are. You can only take responsibility for the present and the future.
So some decisions you need to make are the market. And this is my first thought here. Teachers and parents might be too broad. The teachers' needs and the parents' needs are totally different. And then of course, the students' needs are also different.
Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that the needs of an elementary school students and parents of elementary school students, where the students are using iPads to log in and try to complete their assignments and they're five years old, six years old, whatever it is, I'm pretty sure that their needs are quite different from a 16-year-old, perhaps, who is thinking about SATs or ACTs or some other standardized tests and how do I apply for college and different needs. So first thing is I would narrow down that market. Pick one of those or maybe something else. Next, you need to decide about format, because guide can also mean a lot of things. Is this guide an e-book?
Is it a multimedia course? What does it look like specifically? What are the deliverables for it? That's the third thing. So market format deliverables.
The deliverables could be, OK, I'm going to write a 40-page guide where I'm going to put together seven short videos or whatever it is, maybe both of those things. And then in tandem with that decision, platform. How are you going to publish this? And the deliverables in the format may affect the platform or vice versa. But if you know, OK, here's where I'm going to publish it.
I'm going to make a one-page website. I'm going to do it all myself. OK, and you can do whatever you want. If I'm going to put it on a Udemy or some other third-party service, then they have various standards that you need to take into account. So deciding on your platform in advance can definitely help you.
The last major category I think of is timeline. How long will it take to do all of this? Look, my suggestion here with this project in particular, I think it could be done from start to finish in a month. And I think it should be. Time is of the essence here.
You can always improve it later. Get it out there now. That's what I think anyway. Let me know, Cody, when it's ready. I would love to share it with our audience.
And listeners, if you have a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Let me know what you're up to. Let me know what you're working on, what you're struggling with. I always enjoy hearing from people. And if you're doing distance learning, distance education of some form, let's say, if you are learning or trying to teach or trying to manage and facilitate in some fashion, again, I know it's not always easy out there.
So thank you for all you do. Hang in there as best as you can. And do come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School."
