Week 1: Teaching online is different
Introduction
Welcome to Take your teaching online! In this first week of the course, we will introduce some of the key differences between teaching online and teaching in a face-to-face environment. These differences mean that teaching online is a substantially different experience to teaching face to face, with a substantially different skillset needed for the teacher. The good news is that most teachers can adapt not only their skills, but also many of their existing teaching materials, to suit an online environment. There are a lot of possibilities, but as a minimum, if you and your students have computers and access to the internet, then you can start to teach and learn online.
In this week, you will also meet Rita, our animated colleague who is working her way through this course alongside you. Please allow Rita to introduce herself and to outline what she hopes to get from this course.

Transcript
By the end of this week, you should be able to:
- discuss the main characteristics of online education activities and how these differ from face-to-face teaching
- begin to determine the kinds of face-to-face teaching activities that might, or might not, transfer successfully to an online environment
- summarise the elements of online teaching that need a different skillset to face-to-face teaching.
The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-course survey [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.