Developing an Identity as an Online Facilitator

As I learn more each week in this class, I find I am beginning to create a more accurate identity of myself as an online facilitator. In the intro course I felt a bit lost and wondered if I would be able to learn everything necessary to become an effective online designer and teacher. I am now beginning to feel more confident. It has been helpful to look at this as a step-by-step learning process, rather than expecting I will be an immediate expert.

I am a constructivist at heart, so this type of teaching and facilitation feels natural for me. I like the discovery learning process, and I find that I learn from my students’ discovery while they learn from me as well. Moving into an online environment will give me an outlet for my creativity and I am looking forward to moving ahead in my learning.

Many of the readings have been instrumental in helping me make the shift toward my own competence. A helpful reading was from Dr. Knox regarding The Pedagogy of Web Site Design (http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/magazine/v1n2/knox.asp). He described his own learning curve as he learned how to develop and facilitate the online course. I thought it was interesting that in his desire to apply constructivism to teaching online he forgot that he still needed to teach! Knox also gave guidelines on how much text is enough/too much. I like how he equated the total number of words in his essays to the equivalent of a textbook. Similarly, he questioned the value of having too many links to online resources in a class. Too many links can be frustrating to students and can lead them on a course that can take them away from the primary purpose.

One of the questions people have about the online learning experience is “How can I create a sense of community when I can’t see other participants?” Our sharing of ice-breakers helped to address that issue. As I shared on the discussion board, I think it is very important that any ice-breaker is relevant to the topic being taught. I have been to many workshops in which an icebreaker is used, then the instructor begins to discuss the topic of the workshop, and makes no connection to the subject matter. Thus, any icebreaker I choose will be useful and relevant to student learning.

While I am becoming more and more eager to facilitate my own online classes, I admit I was a bit daunted after reading the diary of the online teacher. What I learned from this is that I must understand what I am getting into as a teacher, but also that I need to create clear boundaries for myself as an instructor, so that I have a life outside of the online classroom! With help from the other class members, I was able to develop a clear idea of what I believe is reasonable class management. Together we identified management tools that address the needs of both instructor and students.

Finally, it is always helpful for me to see good examples of effective online facilitation. It was a great exercise to look at existing sites and to critically evaluate them. What was also interesting was to read the different perspectives from students who visited the same sample classrooms. It shows that, just as f2f instructors differ in their approaches, so do online instructors! As a result, I feel more freedom and look forward to expressing my own creativity in designing my classes.