Transcript Ubiquitous Social Presence: Context

Social Presence and Context-Awareness
for Knowledge Transformation in an
m-Learning Environment
Raymond M. Kekwaletswe
Centre for Educational Technology
U n i v e r s i t y of C a p e T o w n
[email protected]
Overview
 One of the most fundamental facets of learning is the social interaction
in which knowledge is an outcome of individuals sharing experiences.
 In a contact university, learners generally perform learning tasks in
three locations:
 formal contexts
 semi-formal contexts
 informal contexts or non- academic settings.
 As learners move across different learning contexts, they do not have
access to the same social networks for knowledge sharing and
consultation.
 The lack of social presence awareness makes it difficult to provide
them with context sensitive and anywhere anytime support as learning
environments change.
Background
 One of the prevailing educational challenges in a South African
university is that of providing tailored social support to under prepared
learners.
 For these learners, the potential of personalized support on
learning experiences through social awareness could be huge.
 Learners at the University of Cape Town come from very diverse
backgrounds, with different languages and cultures.
 Social awareness of knowledgeable peers with shared background
regardless of a learning location could enrich learning experience and
knowledge transfer.
 This presentation is on how social presence awareness, afforded by
mobile instant messaging (IM), is used to support knowledge
transformation as a learner traverses varied contexts.
Knowledge Transformation
 Knowledge is an ambiguous, unspecific and dynamic phenomenon,
intrinsically related to meaning, understanding and process.
 It is fundamentally intertwined with social settings in which it is
encountered.
 Knowledge transfer is ultimately a human-to-human process.
 Since this process is inherently interactive and dynamic, the
knowledge, in essence, transforms while or during the very process of
its transfer.
 Knowledge transformation is, therefore, a social process which occurs
when there is a shift in knowledge due to the social interaction.
Knowledge Social Space
 Social setting or context in which knowledge is encountered contributes
to its meaning.
 Mindful of this, our view of ideal social presence awareness for
knowledge transformation is one that is sensitive to the background of
a learner, culture and language.
 The shared background, therefore, affords shared interpretations or
meanings.
 Shared meanings are very important to social interaction transpiring via
mobile instant messaging.
 The meaning of the text in IM interaction derives from its context. In
other words, knowledge is socially constructed when IM text message
is socially and contextually interpreted.
Knowledge, Social Presence
& Context Awareness
 The emphasis of this presentation is on how social presence and
context awareness is used in the exchange of knowledge among
learners.
 Knowledge transformation is the outcome of learners sharing
experiences while building helpful and socially rewarding networks of
people.
 For social interaction to begin taking place, learners ought to be aware
of the social presence of available social resources.
 In the next slides, we discuss theories of social presence and context
awareness, conceptual model and conclusion.
Concept of Presence
 Presence, although broadly defined as the sense of ‘being there’ in
a mediated environment, can be conceptualized in a number of
ways.
 These multidimensional conceptualizations, however, can be
grouped into two broad categories—social and physical presence
 The physical category refers to the sense of being physically located
somewhere
 Social category refers to being and communicating with someone
Social Presence Theory
 “Social presence,” initially proposed by Short, Williams, and
Christie (1976) as “technical social presence,”
 was defined as the capacity of the medium itself to present
the “salience of the other person in interpersonal interaction”
 Short, et. al. contended that different communication media convey
varying degrees of social presence based on their ability to transmit
nonverbal and vocal information.
 Challenged by researchers in the field who showed that perceived
social presence in mediated interactions varies among participants.
 They thus argued that social presence was as much a matter of
individual perceptions as an objective quality of the medium.
 Consequently, redefining social presence as “the degree to which a
person is perceived as ‘real’ in mediated communication”
Social Presence
 Rourke, et al (2001) regarded social presence as one of the three
fundamental “presences” that support learning, the other two being
cognitive presence and teaching presence
 Defining it as “the ability of learners to project themselves socially and
affectively into a community of inquiry”
 They identified three categories of social presence indicators --
affective responses, cohesive responses, and interactive responses:



Affective responses contain personal expressions of emotion,
feelings, beliefs, and values.
Cohesive responses are communication behaviors that build and
sustain a sense of group commitment, e.g. greetings and
salutations and group or personal reference.
Interactive responses are behaviors that provide evidence that
others are attending, e.g. agreement/disagreement, approval and
referencing previous messages.
Context
 Context can be understood as the situation in which the
individual or a group of learners find themselves.
 Accordingly, context is defined as any information that can be
used to characterize the situation of an entity.
 An entity is a person, place, or object that is considered relevant
to the interaction between a user and an application
Problem Formulation
 Our view is that awareness of social presence is a useful characteristic
of a learning environment in which a mobile learner is engaged in a
knowledge and learning activity.
 Accepting this premise, there are three challenges:

Firstly, the learner’s engagement with a knowledge transforming
activity is not fixed to particular locations.

Secondly, learning environments exist to support learning and when
a learner moves the environment ought to move with a learner.

Thirdly, the learner ought to be aware of a social presence while
engaged with a location independent learning task and knowledge
transfer.
Problem Formulation
 In this regard, the problem is
 Formal contexts: Interaction in
that of ensuring that the quality
of resources remains consistent
for supporting a learning task
regardless of the location of a
learner.
 We use the term resources
pragmatically to mean peers,
tutors, instructors etc.
 There are three types of
contexts within which a learner
is mobile and for which a
learner needs support:
 Formal contexts
 Semi-formal contexts
 In-formal contexts
these spaces is usually one-way
from instructor to learner. The
instructor delivers lectures, and
a learner either takes notes or is
given a handout. Learning is
often passive
 Semi-contexts: represent
informal spaces on campus.
Most instructors schedule
consultations, often no ad hoc
consultations.
 In-formal contexts include
working during after-hours,
week-ends; in residences, or
home. In these spaces, a
learner may use his or her
mother tongue language to
consult with peers
Proposition
 We sought to provide
ubiquitous learning support
to a learner as he or she
traverses the three contexts,
 Our goal is to create a
context-aware consultation
system.
 Context-aware applications
look at the who’s, where’s,
when’s and what’s of
entities and use this
information to determine why
the situation is occurring.
 An application doesn’t
actually determine why a
situation is occurring
 Our context-aware
consultation environment
supports a learner (who)
as he or she engages with
the learning materials
(what), whether in the
formal, semi or informal
learning contexts
(where), anytime (when)
through the use of
context-aware social
presence mechanisms.
Proposition
 Lonsdale et al (2004) proposed a context model hierarchy to provide a
hierarchical description of context as a dynamic process with historical
dependencies.
 The model had three features:
 Context (what’s going on over time);
 Context state (elements from the learning and setting at one particular time,
space, or goal sequence);
 Context sub-state (elements from the learner and setting that are relevant to
the current focus of learning and desired level of context awareness).
The goal of the context model was to develop a learner-centered
approach to context awareness.
Conceptual Model
 Although we share the learner centered approach, we differ in the
implementation of the context-awareness.
 In our proposition, the mobile learner has access to the same social
network and resources regardless of his or her location or learning
context.
Mobile learner environment
P1
P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
P2
L
P3
Social Presence Awareness
T
P4
P5
Social
L
Network
Peers
T
Social Presence Awareness
L
T
Peer
Mobile lecturer, tutor and peer
environment
P = Learner with a learning task/problem
T =Tutor
L = Lecturer
Social Presence & Context-Aware
Consultation System
In the conceptual model (preceding slide), context-awareness and social
presence are achieved via mobile instant messaging (IM). Current
pilots involve the use of an IM client installed on pocket PCs.
The need for a WiFi enabled PDA is to support synchronous interaction in varied contexts
using wireless network hotspots.

In our view, social awareness is a mental concept where a learner becomes
aware of the social network that follows him or her while moving across the
different learning contexts.

In the model, a learner is consciously aware of available tutors, lecturers and
knowledgeable peers should they encounter a learning problem for which they
need to consult.

By the same token, a peer is consciously aware of other mobile learners as well
as available experts (lecturers or tutors).

Learners access a consistent quality of social network and resources. The social
network provides a necessary social interaction whose outcome is knowledge
transformation in the mind of a learner.
Limitations
 Although the mobile IM environment is serving as a useful source of
context information on available sources of consultable peers, some of
the current challenges include:

Access problems to PDA devices or wireless hotspots.

Integrating IM with the location awareness that is built into cellular
phone systems.

Seamless interface between the mobile IM client and the online
consultation system (developed at UCT) called Dynamic Frequently
Asked Questions, is under investigation.
Conclusion

In view of the fact that learning and knowledge transformation are location and time independent, mobile
instant messaging allows learners the unusual presence awareness of available social resources they can
draw upon for consultation.

We have shown how social presence awareness is used to support a learner. Our conceptual model is a
learning environment that supports the mobility of a learner, continuously assuring him or her of consistent
access to social networks and resources.

We have shown how ubiquitous communication and social interaction through the use of a context-aware
social presence mechanism is employed to support a learner as he or she traverses the formal, semiformal, and informal learning contexts.

Although social network and resources are static, they move with the learner through social awareness
presence, regardless of a learning context. Therefore, social presence afforded by instant messaging could
successfully maintain social networks constituted for anywhere, anytime knowledge transformation.

We have also highlighted some of the implementation challenges with our model which we are addressing
using pragmatic approaches.

We approached mobile instant messaging in its local context of supporting social interaction in a South
African higher education environment, where personalized academic support is a growing need but delivery
is fraught with challenges.

Hence, the synchronous mobile IM allows us to determine the local value it brings to learning and
knowledge sharing, as well as its place among other media of social and educational communication.
Future Work
 The envisaged future work of the mobile IM environment will
allow learners to:

pick up knowledgeable peers or tutors who are nearest to
their location and available for interaction based on hotspot
proximity.
 This mobile IM environment through its social presence
awareness feature will show a learner:

who among his or her social network is available for a
potential immediate and impromptu face-to-face
consultation.
Ke lebogile! Thank you!
 DISCUSSION
and
 QUESTIONS?