Technology has completely transformed the way we live, work and do business. It’s made us more efficient in our day-to-day tasks, given us freedom of remote-working, and access to opportunities that were not available before. We can now utilise evolving technology, market trends and consumer habits to bolster our income, either as a primary job, secondary income or side hustle. While exploring the eight innovative ways technology can help you generate revenue, it’s also critical to secure your business legally. For those establishing a venture in the Golden State, for example, a california llc registration can ensure that your business is compliant with state regulations, leaving you free to focus on monetizing technology to its fullest potential.

It has never been easier to make money using mobile phones and technology, and this article will discuss eight ways that you can use technology to generate a second income without having to work very hard. Using these tips, you should be able to start making money in just a few hours!

1. Create digital products

Make a course or offer advice on your blog, sell it as an ebook or create a membership site for people who want to learn from you. You could also write articles for blogs or magazines, take photos of food you cook and post them on Instagram with links back to your recipe website where they can purchase ingredients. 

If you don’t know where to start, there are plenty of sites like Canva which will design your eBook for you, which takes the guesswork out of the operation and makes the whole process easy and pain-free.

2. Sell products online

In order to make money from home you can sell products online. You need to create a website or an etsy store and, once it is set up, you just have to wait for the orders to come in! The most common way of selling on the internet is through affiliate marketing – this means that if someone purchases something during your first week generating income you will get a cut of that sale.

You can also make money online by selling your products through social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. These are both great ways to advertise products without having any physical stock! With these tips, making an extra $200 every week should be completely doable!

3. Tutor

One way in which people use technology to make money is through tutoring. This was traditionally done in person, however the future of tutoring is through video chat and online tutoring platforms. It makes it simple and streamlined, and you can do it on your own time for whatever hours you want. This is a great way to supplement your income and help children with their learning. Online tutoring also has the added advantage of not needing a physical space or traditional classroom. There are a plethora of online tutoring platforms like Cluey Learning, that are looking for new staff. All you need is a decent internet connection and  a computer with a camera to get started!

4. Share music or art on online platforms

For those who are more creative, there are many ways of making money through music. There are many online platforms that will allow you to upload your songs and, if they get enough plays or downloads, you will start making money! These include Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music and Deezer, among many others. This is a great way of getting exposure for your work while still being able to generate income from it. Make sure you check out which platforms pay more, how many streams you will need, and which platforms will help your growth as an artist.

5. Start a Youtube channel

The world we live in is very different from a few decades ago, but one thing that remains the same is that we love to be entertained. Youtube currently has more than 37 million channels operating on it, and many of the more established channels make money through advertising. You can start your own  Youtube channel and earn passive income through the views on that video. Just make sure your video has a niche element and that you promote your video effectively, or it may get lost in the sea of other videos that are uploaded every day. 

6. Freelance

Another great opportunity for those with tech skills is doing freelance work on the internet. There are many websites where you can connect with potential employers and find work that needs to be done, such as content creation, content writing, graphic design or coding! We are now working more remotely than ever, with management liking the flexibility of hiring freelancers to get jobs done quickly, efficiently and relatively cheaply. 

7. Create online courses

Then there is always the option of making money through online courses. This means creating something like a course on Udemy which will teach others how to do what they need help with, which could be anything from coding to learning Spanish. There are many different online learning sites to choose from, so do your research as they all come with different caveats, expectations and pay.

8. Kickstarters

The final way in which people can use technology to make money is through crowd funding websites such as Kickstarter or Gofundme. In this case, you will create a page and list the product that you are trying to manufacture – once it gets enough views and funds then your backers will get their products! And don’t think for one second that people won’t fund your big idea. Crowdfunding has a quirky history of generating staggering amounts of money towards less than traditional ideas, including the plight to send a Tardis into space, a £40,000 potato salad, and more.

Is it easy to make money online using technology? Absolutely. If you have the skills, there are platforms which will help you find work or sell products without having to go through all of the hassle of working an extra job or slugging through overtime! Technology has come so far in recent years that making additional income is easier than it has ever been!

This is a guest post by Chelsea Rogers

Educational videos come in different shapes: step-by-step guides, lecture recordings, course navigations, project feedback, topic previews, and others. Their main advantages include flexibility, constant improvement of content, low cost, and a chance to engage students from all corners of the world. Creating such videos is a great way to share your knowledge, gain new skills, make friends, and earn money. Especially now when the shift towards remote learning continues. However, it is not easy to create professional videos with millions of views. In this article, we will cover the most common mistakes to avoid and tips to follow.

Recording a video

1. Create a storyboard

Web education has been on the rise and millions of users worldwide create different types of videos every day. But do you know what differs successful educators? They have a storyboard for every video. It is a plan of the future content that includes information about the subject, location setting, situation of the camera, shot type, movements, number of participants, and other issues. The more detailed you are, the fewer problems and surprises you are going to face in the process.

2. Write the script

It doesn’t matter whether you want to make a film or a short video clip: you need to create a script. Here are a few things to remember:

• Make your introduction engaging by inserting a quote, joke, or statistics
• Act natural and be yourself
• Concentrate on the key points
• Use examples
• Thank viewers for watching the video

When the script is written, read it aloud to make sure that it sounds smooth and interesting.

3. Engage the audience

While many users turn to video streaming due to the highest engagement rate, educational videos can also be rewarding if approached correctly.  There are many ways how you can make your videos interesting. First of all, you should transmit your passion to the subject. Cold and impersonal videos won’t gain loyal viewers. You can also insert quizzes, questions, and prizes for leaving comments under the video. Give viewers a sense of community and they will gladly return to you over and over again.

4. Choose the right video length

The common rule of educational content says – the shorter, the better. This means that your videos should be straight to the point and brief. Read the requirements of the chosen educational platform and if else is not stated, stick to 10 – 20 minutes length. The videos should be easy to digest and not overloaded with information. If the viewers decide to download from YouTube or another website, the last thing they want is to spend hours waiting for the file.

5. Use a green screen

Some video creators are afraid of using green screens because they think it is difficult and time-consuming. Well, it may be at first but has a wide range of advantages. With a green screen, you can record videos on literally any background, hide imperfections of your home, and contribute to branding. It also reduces time spent on preparing the surroundings and is extremely flexible and portable. An irreplaceable element for creators of educational videos!

6. Invest in good equipment

A professional video is a must if you want to occupy firm positions in the virtual educational arena. That is why you need to spend some money on a quality vlogger camera, microphone, headsets, and other equipment. And don’t forget about good lighting which is one of the most important elements of great videos. The good news is that if you are a student or a teacher, Apple Education Store may give significant discounts.  And, if you do have the budget, you can allow one of the top Portland video production companies to worry about equipment while you focus on content creation.”

7. Use professional editing tools

Video editing is a crucial element of the process. It makes your educational content interesting, good-looking, and free from imperfections. With the help of an animation maker you can make videos more engaging and by using screencasting tools – insert what is happening on your computer. Beginners should consider a free video editor, while experienced users can invest in a paid one. The most popular editing tools are FlexClip, Wirewax, FlashBack, Animoto, Filmora, Wideo, and Clipchamp.

8. Compress videos

Without video compression, loading time can reach days. Exhausting, right? That is why you should use video compression software to reduce the loading time and minimize buffering for the viewers. It allows compressing videos by half without harming the quality and choosing almost any format. This means that your video can be played on any website and software.

9. Pick the right platform

Depending on your niche and target audience, the choice of the platform to publish videos may vary. Some of them are free, while others – paid. There are also websites that have both free and premium packages. The most popular platforms for educational videos are YouTube, Facebook, Metacafe, Break, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Flickr, and Veoh. We recommend choosing several websites and social media networks to attract as many users as possible.

      10. Check user engagement

Your work doesn’t stop when the video is uploaded. The next step should include analytics, i.e. collecting data on how the audience watches your videos, what they like and don’t like. The most visual indicators are total plays, play rate, and average engagement. You can use free analytical programs by Google or invest in paid ones. All of them work well and give lots of valuable insights on the things that should be improved in the future.

Learning in progress

Concluding thoughts…

Now you know that creating educational videos requires a thoughtful and step-by-step approach. First, invest in a vlogger camera or another equipment of your choice, then download iMovie and other tools for creating great videos. Don’t forget about writing an engaging script and inserting images, animation, and other elements into the content. If you lack inspiration, research other online educators and you will surely find fresh ideas to get started.

Flipped learning is a pedagogical model in which the teacher delivery during in-class time is flipped with the homework elements of a course.  As a type of blended learning technique, students can watch relevant videos at home, which have been prepared by the teacher, while using their in-class time to focus on exercises, projects or discussions.

My own transition to a flipped learning classroom has been a gradual, organic process.  Although I still believe there is a place for the traditional (“sage-on-the- stage”) teaching approach, I’ve come to recognise the many advantages of a flipped learning model.   Sharing relevant tutorial videos with students and colleagues, both from my own YouTube channel and links elsewhere on the Web, enables me to spend more time as a facilitator of learning.  This simply means that learners spend less time passively listening at the beginning of the lesson and more time engaged in activities to develop their skills.  By doing away with the traditional classroom, which is very teacher centred, it also means that I have extra time to provide valuable one-on-one assistance to students who need it the most.

According to Eric Sheninger (2016), author of Uncommon Learning, there are two main components associated with the flipped learning approach:

1.  Students watch lectures and consume other forms of content outside of school at their own pace whilst communicating with peers and teachers using online learning tools.  In my opinion, this point about students working at their own pace cannot be understated.  The ability for students to pause, rewind and fast-forward a tutorial video means that they are in a much better situation to assimilate new learning.

2.  Students apply what they have learnt during in class time with assistance from the teacher.  As there is more time freed up during the lesson itself, there are more opportunities for small-group work and one-to-one contact with lower-performing students.

In order to make the lesson time itself more engaging while integrating formative assessment, there are many web-based tools that can complement the students’ main in class activities:

– Poll Everywhere

– Plickers

– Kahoot

– TodaysMeet

In addition, there are also some fantastic tools out there for students themselves to become authors, teachers and collaborators, working together to teach content to each other.  Some of the best of these tools include:

– Adobe Voice 

– VideoScribe

– Explain Everything

– Quizlet 

– Google Slides 

As well as giving my students opportunities to use these tools, I have used each one of these applications myself as a medium in which to share information with students for them to learn at their own pace.  As Sheninher himself states though, ‘pedagogy always trumps technology’.  For digital learning to be implemented effectively, we should focus on pedagogy first and technology second.  When integrating technology, we need to remember that it is less about the tool and more about what students can do with the tools handed to them.

That being said, with all these web-based tools and other digital applications available, it makes sense that a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or 1:1 technology initiative can radically enhance the flipped learning model.  By providing students with access to their own device, it can bring out the best of what flipped learning has to offer.  According to Sheninger (2016, pp. 117),

The flipped classroom is an excellent first step in making students’ in-class experiences more active, more student centred, and more meaningful. Combining the best aspects of the flipped classroom with the power of 1:1 technology would allow for an even more radical reshaping of the classroom. School should become a place where students can learn at their own individual paces, become active creators instead of solely passive content recipients, and learn in an environment that they “own”, which adjusts rapidly to meet their learning needs and interests.      

The futurist and former executive editor at Wired, Kevin Kelly, provides stellar insight into the future of our digital world in his book, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future .  In order to help with my own understanding of these fascinating trends that Kevin Kelly has covered, I’ve made notes on some key points, which I believe are important factors for us all to consider as we educate today’s students for tomorrow’s world:

BECOMING

Our greatest invention in the last 200 years has been the scientific process itself because it has enabled us to create thousands of other amazing things that we could never have discovered any other way.

Existence, it seems, is chiefly maintenance.  For example, keeping a website afloat is like keeping a yacht afloat.

Continual upgrades are so critical for technological systems that they are now automatic for the major personal computer operating systems and some software apps.  Technological life in the future will be a series of endless upgrades.

Only 40 per cent of the web is commercially manufactured.  The rest is fuelled by duty and passion.

Half of all web pages in the world today are hosted on more than 35 million servers running free Apache software, which is open source, community created.

The web will more and more resemble a presence that you relate to rather than a place.  By 2050 we’ll come to think of the web as an ever-present type of conversation.

There has never been a better day in the whole history of the world to invent something.

FLOWING

The digital age can be seen to have developed in three stages:

The initial age of computing imitated the medium it replaced.  Our screens had a “desktop” and “folders” and “files”.  They were hierarchically ordered, like much of the industrial age that the computer was overthrowing.

The second stage overturned the office metaphor and brought us the organising principle of the web.  The basic unit was no longer files but “pages”.  Pages were not organised into folders, but were arranged into a networked web of both stored information and active knowledge.

Now we are transitioning to the third age of computation.  Pages and browsers are far less important.  Today the prime units are flows and streams.  The cloud is the new organising metaphor for computers.

SCREENING

To everyone’s surprise, ultra thin screens and tablets have launched an epidemic of reading and writing that has continued to swell.  The amount of time people spend reading has almost trebled since 1980.  By 2015 more than 60 trillion pages have been added to the World Wide Web, and that total grows by several billion a day.

Screening, in which information is read on a screen, encourages rapid pattern making, associating one idea with another, equipping us to deal with the thousands of new thoughts expressed every day.

Propaganda is less effective in a world of screens, because while misinformation travels fast, corrections do too.  Wikipedia works so well because it removes an error in a single click, making it easier to eliminate a falsehood than to post a falsehood in the first place.

In the goodness of time, each Wikipedia page will become saturated with blue links as every statement is cross-referenced.  In the goodness of time, as all books become fully digital, every one of them will accumulate the equivalent of blue underlined passages as each literary reference is networked within that book to all other books.

Brewster Kahle, an archivist who is backing up the entire Internet, says that a universal library is now within reach in which all the world’s literature is accessible to all the people of the world.  All the books within the books’ bibliographies will themselves be available, and so you can hop through the library in the same way we hop through web links, travelling from footnote to footnote until you reach the bottom of things.  In this way, all the books the world will be knitted together into a single networked literature.  A reader will be able to generate a social graph of an idea, or a timeline of a concept, or a networked map of influence for any notion in the library.  We’ll come to understand that no work, no idea stands alone, but that all good, true and beautiful things are ecosystems of intertwined parts and related entities, past and present.

If you can truly incorporate all texts – past and present in all languages – on a particular subject, then you can have a clearer sense of what we as a civilisation do and don’t know.

As portable screens become more powerful, lighter and larger, they will be used to view more of the ‘inner world’.  Hold an electronic tablet up as you walk along a street – or wear a pair of contact lenses – and it will show you an annotated overlay of the real street ahead: where the restrooms are, which stores sell your favourite items, where your friends are hanging out.  In the next 30 years semitransparent eyeglasses will apply an information layer to reality.  In this way, screens will enable us to “read” everything, not just text.

In the near future we will never be far from a screen from some sort.  Screens will be the first place we’ll look for answers, for friends, for news, for meaning, for our sense of who we are and who we can be.

ACCESSING

A reporter for TechCrunch recently observed, “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles.  Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content.  Alibaba, the world’s most valuable retailer, has no inventory.  And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.  Something interesting is happening.”

Possession is not as important as it once was.  Accessing is more important than ever.

The trend in the past 30 years has been to make better stuff using fewer materials.  That’s called dematerialisation.  The total amount of material we use per GDP dollar is going down, which means we use less material for greater value.  A central advantage of the cloud for example, is that the bigger it gets, the smaller and thinner our devices can be.

The switch from “ownership that you purchase” to “access that you subscribe to” overturns many conventions.  Ownership is casual, fickle.  If something better comes along, grab it.  A subscription, on the other hand, gushes a never-ending stream of updates, issues and versions that force a constant interaction between the producer and consumer.

TVs, phones, and software as service are just the beginning.  In the last few years we’ve gotten hotels as service (Airbnb), tools as service (TechShop), clothes as service (Nerd Block, Sparkbox).  Just ahead are several hundred new startups trying to figure out how to do food as service (FaS).

Examples of new, digital business models…

Delivery: Let a network of freelancers deliver packages to homes (Uber for FedEx).  Design: Let a crowd of designers submit designs, just pay the winner (CrowdSpring).  Heath care: Coordinate sharing insulin pumps.  Real estate: Rent your garage s storage space, or an unused cubicle as office space for a startup (WeWork).

For many of the things we will use in the upcoming world, short-term use will be the norm.  As more items are invented and manufactured – as the total number of hours in the day to enjoy them remains fixed – we spend less time per item.  In other words, the long-term trend in our modern lives is that most goods and services will be short-term use.  Therefore most goods and services are candidates for rental and sharing.  Sharing economy services such as Netflix and Spotify for example, move audiences away from owning anything.

On average, communication technology is biased toward moving everything to on demand.  And on demand is biased toward access over ownership.

When everyone “owns” it, nobody owns it.  That is often what we mean by public property or the commons.  Just like with roads, the decentralised web/Internet is now the central public commons.  The good of the web serves us as if we owned it, yet we need to do very little to maintain it.

If McLuhan is right that tools are extension of our selves – a wheel an  extended leg, a camera an extended eye – then the cloud is our extended soul.  Or, if you prefer, our extended self.  In one sense, it is not an extended self we own, but one we have access to.

Collective action can create additional value that can only come from the group as a whole.  For instance, a pile of tourist snapshots of the Eiffel Tower, each taken from a different angle by a different tourist at a different time, and each one heavily tagged, can be assembled (using software such as Microsoft’s Photosynth) into a stunning 3D holistic rendering of the whole structure that is far more complex and valuable than the individual shots.

Instead of money, the peer producers who create various products and services online gain credit, status, reputation, enjoyment, satisfaction, and experience.

The most common motivation for working without pay (according to a survey of 2,784 open source developers) was “to learn and develop new skills.”

The largest, fastest growing, most profitable companies in 2050 will be companies that will have figured out how to harness aspects of sharing that are invisible and unappreciated today.  Anything that can be shared – thoughts, emotions, money, health, time – will be shared in the right conditions, with the right benefits.

FILTERING

It is 10 times easier today to make a simple video than 10 years ago.

We are still at the early stages in how and what we filter.  These powerful computational technologies can be – and will be – applied to the Internet of everything.

Since it is the last scarcity, wherever attention flows, money will follow.

Our lives are already significantly more complex than even five years ago.  We need to pay attention to far more sources in order to do our jobs, to learn, to parent, or even to be entertained.  Our seemingly distracted state and our endless flitting from one thing to another is not a sign of disaster, but it is a necessary adaptation to this current environment.  Google is not making us dumber.  Rather we need to web surf to be agile, to remain alert to the next new thing.  We therefore need a real-time system of filters upon filters in order to operate in the explosion of options we have created.

The only things that are increasing in cost while everything else heads to zero are human experiences – which cannot be copied.  Everything else becomes commoditised and filterable.  The value of experience is rising.

REMIXING

Growth comes from remixing.

Modern technologies are combinations of earlier primitive technologies that have been rearranged and remixed.

We live in a golden age of new mediums.  In the last several decades hundreds of media genres have been born, removed out of old genres.  Recombination is really the only source f innovation – and wealth.

Every creation that has any value will eventually be transformed – in some version – into something different.

The more powerful the invention or creation, the more likely and more important it is that it will be transformed by others.

In 30 years the most important cultural works and the most powerful mediums will be those that have been remixed the most.

INTERACTING

We are equipping our devices with senses – eyes, ears, motion – so that we can interact with them.  They will not only know we are there, they will know who is there and whether that person is in a good mood.  Of course, marketers would love to get hold of our quantified emotions, but this knowledge will serve us directly as well, enabling our devices to respond to us “with sensitivity” as we hope a good friend might.

TRACKING

We are opaque to ourselves and need all the help we can get to decipher who we are.  One modern aid is self-measurement.

Macroscopic measurements can be inserted into watches, clothes, spectacles, or phones, or inexpensively dispersed in our rooms, cars and public spaces.

Anything that can be tracked is being tracked by someone somewhere.

The achievable dream in the near future is to use a very personal database of your body’s record (including your full sequence of genes) to construct personal treatments and personalised medicines.

The AI in research labs is already powerful enough to sift through billions of records and surface important, meaningful patterns.

The fastest-increasing quantity on this planet is the amount of information we are generating.  It is (and has been) expanding faster than anything else we can measure over the scale of decades.

If today’s social media has taught us anything about ourselves as a species, it is that the human impulse to share overwhelms the human impulse for privacy.   Vanity trumps privacy.

QUESTIONNING

From this new societal organisation, new behaviours emerge that were impossible at the lower level.

Most of what “everybody knows” about human beings has so far been based on the human individual.  But there may be a million different ways to connect several billion people, and each way will reveal something new about us.  Or each way may create something new.  Either way, our humanity will shift.

BEGINNING

This is the time when inhabitants of this planet first linked themselves together into one very large thing.