Online education is a popular option for many educational institutions. If a school wants to move most or  a big part of its teaching and learning resources, the teachers would have to prepare themselves for what such a move would entail. It is never simply about a transfer of traditional teaching and learning resources to the web.

Teachers would have to decide what are the kinds of lessons that would be moved to the web. Not all would have to be moved and maybe, not even a majority of them. Teachers would first have to decide which lessons are best done online? Would the teachers want these resources to be of the drill-and-practice nature or the exploratory nature?

What are the platforms for these resources? Have the teachers familiarized themselves with these platforms’ strengths and quirks? Would the students be required to work individually or in groups in a collaborative nature? If the latter, how is the work to be chunked so that real collaboration takes place.

They would have to know about, among other things, synchronous and asynchronous online learning. They would have to be aware that in asynchronous online learning, they would not be able to use body language, facial gestures and to some extent even their personality which usually exudes their warmth to the students which is so important towards creating a safe learning environment may undergo some major changes. Any good teacher would know that these are very important aspects of their teaching repertoire. The absence of face-to-face contact in asynchronous would also mean that the immediate feedback that a teacher usually gets from their students through their the same body language and facial expressions would also be lost.

While synchronous learning through, for example, video conferencing, can in theory reduce some of these losses, teachers would still need to adapt to the virtual environment. In short, there is a real need to train teachers to use ICT effectively if a school plans to move its teaching and learning resources online.

These are just a  few of the issues that teachers and school adminsitrators have to grapple with when turning to the web. These are issues that must be decided based on what the school wants to do for its students.

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