As I am differentiating the role of the instructor in f2f courses versus DE courses something occurred to me. We frequently refer to today’s students as “technology natives.”  In other words, students today have grown up with technology.  I have a niece in Ghana with whom I Skype regularly.  She is growing up with the idea that people on the screen recognize you and speak to you.  Her experience with technology is very different than my own (as a person in his 40’s.)  It is difficult for me to understand what it is like for her.  By the same reasoning, the majority of DE instructors currently facilitating online instruction probably grew up with a more traditional educational background.  In other words, there are probably not that many professors out there who received their degrees through DE courses.  I think that DE instructors should have to take courses online so they can more closely empathize with the student’s experience.  Kind of the same thing as police officers who have to be tazered in order to carry a tazer gun (well, sort of.)