The Roles of an Online Facilitator

As I have been progressing through my online course (teaching me to be an online facilitator) I'm developing a greater appreciation and respect for those instructors doing this full-time, and to the extent we are learning about. This week we were asked to look at 4 roles an online facilitator has and evaluate them. Below is what I've come up with:

Four Roles of an Online Teacher

Social Director, Program Manager, Technician, Instructor

List the Four Roles of an Online Teacher from Your Weakest to Strongest	What Skills Do I Need to Gain or Strengthen?	How I Will Gain The Skills?
Social Director	Collaboration with other online instructors to get ideas/projects for successful community building Continually implement new projects into the course to develop community throughout the course Encourage interactivity and participation among students	Start with a welcoming, introductory activity Encourage interactions among students throughout the course by providing opportunities to work together and collaborate
Instructor	Facilitate learning without giving students a direct route to get there, allow students to find their way Provide timely/personal feedback to students	Establish a realistic “turn around time” for grading work or providing feedback. This needs to be soon enough to give adequate feedback to students while at the same time not overwhelm me with work
Program Manager	Develop a well designed course with a smooth flow from one unit to the next Establish a workable/doable time frame for assignments to be due and allow enough time for students to complete work and not feel overwhelmed Provide time management tips to help students with large projects	Work through some of the projects (simulations) I will have my students do so I have a better understanding of the time it will take Provide due date steps to break up work for units, not everything due on one day
Technician	Use common technologies that students and myself are used to Use a variety of text tools to provide information (video, audio, text, etc.) Do not always try to introduce new things (required new things) when something is working well, use new technologies sporadically Allow students to use the technologies they are comfortable with, even though I may not be familiar with, as long as the ultimate learning goal is met Provide basic FAQ’s or How-To’s for students to address basic needs	Continue my own technical learning so I can stay on top of new programs/Web 2.0 tools Continue to develop my PLN on Twitter and elsewhere to have some "go-to" people for questions or ideas

My idea of online instruction before taking this class and now are so drastically different! It's not that I didn't think online teaching was easy, but I did not realize all the requirements and laws that are now affecting it. I have a few blended courses I had looked on as being a pretty good start to moving to online. Boy, do I have some work to do this summer!