One perception doesn’t fit all : are you prepared to meet all your online learners’ needs?

Abstract

Online innovations have been growing rapidly in the past number of years. The integration of online learning with these technological advancements creates significant challenges in determining how the use of technology can contribute to the delivery of learning materials. An area where little research has been undertaken is in determining the skills and attributes online facilitators need to be effective. This study is based on inputs gathered from both online facilitators and online learners. These inputs provided empirical information pertaining to the roles and tasks of both facilitators and learners in an ideal online learning environment. Of what benefit would this study be to future online learning? Taking cognisance of an ideal online environment, the outcomes of this study are categorised into unique groups that will provide insight to the future development of online facilitators and the tasks to be executed in addressing the diverse needs of the online learner in the knowledge era.