This article reproduces some fragments of chapter 3 of the Document eLearning in Israel, devoted to the so called ‘online teacher’, published by the European Training Foundation and written by Eli Eisenberg. This Literature Review summarizes several studies about the use of ICT in the classroom, giving an interesting overview on research findings about teachers’ role, pupils’ features and ICT integration in schools.

The teacher constitutes a key factor in students’ experiencing success in online courses. The teacher’s role changes dramatically, from a transmitter of information – a ‘sage on the stage’ – to one who guides and facilitates according to the constructivist approach to learning – a ‘guide at the site’. The online teacher must create a focused environment for co-operative learning, and ensure a high level of interactivity and participation by developing activities that engage the learners in authentic and strategic problem-solving tasks [1]. The role of the online teacher is defined as the facilitator of the process that will enable information to become knowledge by asking questions, providing examples or modelling, and giving advice and suggestions. He or she must encourage students to investigate sources of information, explain and detail their ideas, and organise the knowledge they have built for presentation purposes.

In terms of administration, the online teacher has a greater responsibility than the conventional teacher in planning and managing the schedule, maintaining the pace of progress, setting goals and checking student achievement, and managing assignments, papers, and examinations.

The teacher as a facilitator

The job of the online teacher as a facilitator of a virtual course was studied by Nir-Gal [2] from the perspective of the needs and expectations of students from an academic college. In her research, she identified and defined four spheres of facilitation: facilitation in the technical-operative sphere (37%); facilitation in the task-orientated sphere (31%); facilitation in the personal-emotional sphere (26%); and facilitation in the social sphere (6%).

Most of the students (56%) in an online course prefer combined facilitation (virtual with face-to-face); 34% prefer virtual facilitation only; and 10% prefer just face-to-face facilitation. One interesting finding was that students participating in an online course were prepared to actively assist in facilitating their peers, alongside the formal facilitation of the teacher, both in the technical-operational sphere and the task-orientated sphere.

The need for personal-emotional facilitation

Another finding, no less important, was the need for facilitation of discussion groups in the personal-emotional sphere for the members of the group. Examples of meaningful emotional behaviours that were appreciated by the students in an online course included: ‘The encouragement you sent me… I needed that very much’; ‘The (personal) support and assistance, you have no idea how much better they made me feel’; and ‘The quick (individual) response to this need was very heartening and encouraging, and gave me lots of motivation’.

Teachers’ Internet Usages

Shamir [3], in her study on the characteristics of Internet usage in a teachers’ course, examined a heterogeneous group of 193 teachers, which constituted 76% of all teachers working in the five primary and secondary schools that were examined. The study findings indicated that the degree to which the Internet had become part of their teaching was closely related to the degree to which the teachers used the Internet for their own personal needs, the strength of their attitudes regarding the effectiveness of Internet usage, and easy access to the Internet from home and school. The teachers recognised the Internet as a tool that allows them to expose the pupils to rich, varied, and attractive information, but they claimed that disadvantages such a difficulty in classifying, organising, and evaluating information, the pupils’ telecommunications skills for meaningful learning, and the fear of lack of control in terms of discipline and the types of information to which the students are exposed, can all delay the process of integrating the Internet into the classroom.

Shamir’s findings indicate that teachers do not attribute sufficient importance to the role of the Internet as enabling educational dialogue and communications among themselves, and between themselves and their pupils. Furthermore, teachers who teach sciences use the Internet in their teaching more often than teachers who teach humanities. The group of teachers who feel most comfortable in using the Internet in their teaching are those who have between 6 and 10 years of seniority in their position. It is obvious that with the change in the role of a teacher running an online course, the organisational and structural difficulties of the traditional, hierarchical, and linear school contrast with the Internet culture, which is democratic, open, and limitless.

The advantages of Internet from lecturers’ view The priorities of lecturers who have operated academic course sites [4] regarding the goals of integrating the sites into their courses can be summarised as follows (more than one response was permitted): students’ access to the course study material – 95%; enriching students with knowledge in the subject area – 64%; course management and administration – 57%; generating motivation and curiosity – 29%; reviewing material – 25%. Only 13% responded that the online course supplemented their lectures, and a mere 4% categorised the eLearning course as a full replacement for classroom lectures. The findings also show that the course sites, from the lecturers’ perspective, had advantages in three key areas: the ability to update and reorganise learning materials, improving the lecturer’s relationship with students, and increasing the amount of enjoyment gained from teaching. It seems that the most significant factor in terms of motivating the lecturers to integrate Internet sites into additional courses was the response of the students. Another key factor was the possibility of obtaining professional technical advice, and reducing the burden of frontal lessons with the introduction of computerised teaching and learning. Some 95% of the lecturers responded that they intended to continue operating course sites in the future.

The characteristics of the ‘ideal’ teacher

The characteristics of teachers who should integrate ICT into their teaching more easily than others, according to the ICT experts interviewed [5] [6] [7] [8] [9], are flexible thinking, openness to change, focus on process rather than outcomes, curiosity, interest, independence, and self-confidence – in short, a teacher who is a good pedagogue will also be a good online teacher. This is a teacher who constantly searches for, develops, and applies innovative and quality teaching methods to improve his pupils’ learning.

Undoubtedly, in the experts’ opinion, ICT places a greater burden on the teachers due to the academic dialogues they conduct from their home with pupils, colleagues, and school administration, and changes are needed in the occupational, organisational and physical structure of teaching and learning systems in schools so that ICT can be integrated naturally and will contribute to
the pupils’ progress.

Amit [10] emphasises the decentralisation aspect of the autonomy of the Internet, which fosters more independent activity by the learner in identifying information and turning it into knowledge. Dayan and Poor support his position by arguing that teachers must be inculcated, both in their training as students and through in-service courses, with the skills they need to instruct their pupils to locate, categorise, and process information into knowledge.