Four roles of online instructor/facilitator were identified in this article and they are categorized into pedagogical, social, managerial, and technical area. Similarly, such roles can also be found in f2f learning environment. When we take a close look at the technical role of online instructor, a question is emerged.
Berge suggested that “the facilitator must make participants comfortable with the system and the software that the conference is using. The ultimate technical goal for the instructor is to make the technology transparent.” Many instructors have had experience of repeatedly answering questions like “I cannot install this software on my PC” or “how do you publish the PPT on the Google Docs”. Instructors may have extra workload on providing technical support than the actual teaching. Furthermore, some questions may be very technical and go beyond instructors’ IT knowledge and ability. This is an issue that an online instructor faces.
Institutes should not expect instructors to be the technical support to online learners. Very often, the decision of using certain software or system, WebCT and Moodle for instance, are not up to instructors. The role and responsibility of online instructors in terms of the technical support should be clarified when offering an online course. To achieve the ultimate goal (make the technology transparent), three parties, instructors, institutes and online learners need to work together.
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