The Online Facilitation Course is designed to follow the workshop and gives candidates the necessary knowledge and practices them in the key skills used when facilitating a course online.

Objectives:

Establishing the eTutoring role within a course

Giving the candidates the essential facilitation skills

Establishing the benefits and weaknesses of sametime support tools and giving candidates some practice with sample tools

Giving candidates the tools to produce learning agreements and managing service levels

Agenda of Module 1 – e-Learning and the Role of the Tutor

Course Overview

Guidance on completing the on-line course

Recap and background reading for:

• Roles of an e-tutor
• E-Learning essentials
• Key technical knowledge

Initial Exercise – Participating in an online discussion

Agenda of Module 2 – The Tutor as a Facilitator of Online Communication

Recap and background reading for:

• Understanding learner demands and pressure
• Essential nature of online communication

Practical Exercise

• Welcoming and introductions
• Initiating discussions
• Improving student participation
• Refocusing and guiding discussions
• Dealing with conflict
• Coordinating team discussions
• Closing and summarising discussions

Using online best-practice guide to support students

Agenda of Module 3 – Working with Sametime Tools

Use of chat and white boarding

Sametime exercise – exploring chat

• Discussing appropriate uses for Sametime Tools

Reference material on best practice

Survey – Attitudes to asynchronous and synchronous discussions

Agenda of Module 4 – Building and Managing Service Levels

Importance of setting expectations

Building a Service Level Agreement

• Including group discussion and online advice

Building a Learner Contract

• Including group discussion and online advice

Final Survey