Teach.On - Renovate your skills

Admittedly, my decision to undertake a project in creating an online learning course has been overshadowed with doubts about my own technical capacity to do the 'techie' stuff to make it work.  I have therefore been doing a lot of reading in preparation for this exercise, and I am presently doing the Online Course Creation Diploma Course with the UK based Centre of Excellence. In my preparatory reading I was heartened by the proclamation from Ko and Rossen ( Teaching Online: A Practical Guide,  2004) that  “Techies don’t necessarily make the best online instructors. An interest in pedagogy should come first, technology second” (p. 16).    With this affirmation, I proceeded to sort through all my resources to see if I can identify definitive steps for starting the conversion process. I soon realized that developing an online course requires more time and effort than a face-to-face course because even if you have the content in your head, or saved as a text ...

The Coronavirus caught teachers off guard.  Schools closed suddenly and in some cases gave teachers just a few days to make the transition from classroom to online learning, leaving them between a rock and a hard place.  Some teachers were fortunate enough to be given some basic training but then they were expected to go out and perform online miracles to keep their students learning. Experienced teachers, trainers and lecturers usually have their course materials 'in their heads' and effectively deliver classes, lectures, and training sessions using prepped notes or worksheets as supplemental materials.  Under pressure from national and district authorities, teachers have had to forego best practices for modifying classroom sessions and some have been slapping content onto virtual learning platforms to cover the rest of the curriculum for the academic term.    However,  teachers need proper, structured training to do online learning well.  Conver...