Skills and challenges of an online instructor

What Skills and qualities do I have that I believe will be transferable to me being an online teacher?

One of the things that I pride myself on as a teacher, is my organizational skills, and my calm nature. I am not the teacher that you might see in the photocopy room five minutes before the bell frantically pawing away at the machine because it isn’t working and their class is starting, and their car wouldn’t start, etc etc. While I am occasionally caught out by a smart board that isn’t too smart, I make sure to get in to work early so that I am ready to go when the kids come in.
I suppose in a DL course, that would mean having all the assignments, and criteria made ready well in advance just in case I had a student who works at blazing speed. Given the “day in the life” of a DL instructor write up, it looks like there may be a lot of meeting times, so I would probably be early for those too.

The ability to take risks on new technology is something that I always enjoy. As an example, our school was given 10 iPads to use in the library, and I was the first teacher through the door to get the tutorial with my class. They loved working with what they would consider current technology, and I got to learn how to use the newest iMovie app.

I feel that I am a life-long learner, and that that would benefit me as an online instructor. I try to push my comfort zones in terms of both what I teach (Drama and Foods anyone? How about Dance?) and also how I teach (Taking this course, for a start)

What challenges can I see for myself as an online teacher?

Looking back over the lesson, I can see that the kind of student may be quite different than those that I am used to in my brick and mortar school. I don’t have any personal experience with DL classes, but it seems that there might be less of an “average” student population than in a non-DL classroom. I think that would pose a challenge to generating discussion forums, and other instructional strategies.

I also really value my face to face interactions with students. I try to make my lessons funny and engaging, and I am not sure how to translate that into an online format.