The challenge of teaching online is to use some existing digital tools methodically and skilfully. The choice of e-tools is secondary and will vary from school to school. Using the chosen e-tools is not more difficult than using a word processor. As an online teacher, your methodical and psychological skills are the most important factor for success.

You miss the direct contact with the class. Teaching at a distance feels like flying blind. You lack the verbal and nonverbal feedback from the class. You're worried, whether the learners are still with you, whether the class works or whether individuals fall behind

How can we empower the online learner

As an experienced teacher you know exactly how to address individual learners, groups or the whole class in the classroom and how to manage processes.

When teaching at a distance you will want to perform the same activities. In the virtual learning environment you need to think about how to use the available channels intelligently.

Study the document at the right:

Step 1

We decide, how many houres self-directed online Learning and how many Live-Lessons LL or Individual Mentoring IM sessions should be offered per week.

Step 2

Then we decide how many weeks the course will last.

Step 3

Create a time grid with WEEKS as columns and the communication channels as rows

Step 4

Take Post-it notes for activities, documents, assignments and fill them into corresponding cells

Step 5

Verify logical structure of learning processes, check the comprehensiveness of the course contentand and adjust students’ workload-

Step 6

Create a holistic learning experience where every learning activity relates to other elements of the course.

Resulting outline of your course

The following script serves you and your team as a planning tool during the entire production process. Now the work can be organized in a collaborative way. Someone will create the website, others will collect and design the learning resources, and finally all the pieces will be put together into a complex puzzle.

Creating a Web-Site as your information center point

If you never designed any web site you can work with this Tutorial for designing a web site with New Google Sites.

Use Google groups as your discussion board

It you want to launch a discussion in your class you should use a discussion board. It is way more effective to have a thematic discussion in a discussion board than with mails or in a chat.

Learners don't have to search for the discussion platform, because you can comfortably integrate it into the learning path on your web-site.