Transcript Creating Social Presence in Your Online Course

Creating Social
Presence
in Your Online Course
Fran McDonald, Mary Kot-Jansen, Bob Loser
April 7, 2009
Why is social presence important?
Imagine being the
only student at
your college.
Why is social presence important?
You hear only your own footsteps in the halls.
Why is social presence important?
The lecture
hall is empty.
Why is social presence important?
You sit by
yourself
in the
classroom.
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Why is social presence important?
You view an
automated
presentation
by yourself.
Why is social presence important?
You sit alone in the lunch room.
Why is social presence important?
The library
is empty.
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Why is social presence important?
The
campus
paths are
deserted.
Why is social presence important?
There is
nobody to
talk to about
things you
don’t
understand.
Why is social presence important?
There is nobody to help you celebrate your success.
Why is social presence important?
 We are social beings.
 We are physically isolated in online
courses.
 Isolation may be a factor in attrition;
community may increase
persistence (Rovai, 2002).
Rovai. A. P. (2002). “Building a Sense of Community at a Distance.” The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning., 3(1), April, 2002.
Social Presence Techniques
 Initial contacts
 Active involvement
 Projection of personality
 Good communication
 Timely interaction
Active Involvement
Instructor Presence: http://tinyurl.com/cv23p8
From Frydenberg, J. (2008). “Facilitating a Distance Education Course.” Online Instructor Training.
University of California Irvine.
Active Involvement
What can you do each workday to be
visibly present in your course?
Good Communication Practices
 Clarify
to overcome the missing communication channels that
normally help convey meaning
 Humanize
to overcome the impersonal nature of textual
communication
 Motivate
to overcome the isolating nature of online learning
Adapted from Chiles, A. (2008). “How to Win Your Students’ Confidence.”
Good Communication Practices
 Clarify
 Restate information or directions in different
ways
 Use examples from student work
 Use the telephone or in-person meetings
Good Communication Practices
Clarify Example
Barbara,
Here's what I usually do to make sure I see all the messages in a forum:
1. Click on Tree View in the upper right corner if you aren't already in tree view. Tree view lists everyone's initial
posts. It also lists the replies under the main message, but indented. List view only lists the initial messages,
not the replies.
2. Click Expand All at the bottom of the list of messages. This will ensure that all the messages and replies are
listed. If you don't do this, new replies are collapsed into the original message, which has a plus sign next to
it. You could just click each plus sign to show the replies, but it's faster to click Expand All.
3. View the new messages, which will be easy to spot because the title, author, and date/time are all in boldface
type.
The other forum you are referring to is the one titled "Open Forum." When you click the Discussion Board button,
you will see all the discussion forums listed. The Open Forum is currently the second forum in the list, right
under the Introductions forum.
Bob
Good Communication Practices
 Humanize
 Use names
 Use a less formal, TA style
 Share some personal information and
emotions
 Reference common experiences
 Use humor about safe topics
Good Communication Practices
Humanize Example
Gena,
Your story has ironic meaning for me, because I received the kind of supervisory training you
had to design when I worked for the government many years ago. Like you, I'm better at hard
skills than soft ones. We had to role play a meeting with a problem employee. I played the
supervisor and a colleague played my problem employee. The colleague channeled an actual
problem employee of mine very well, and I slipped immediately into my normal, incorrect, easygoing mode with her. The trainer stopped the role play immediately, corrected me (gently), and
restarted the role play. I did better the second time and have never forgotten the lesson.
It's interesting that your project was more difficult to accomplish because of the diversity of your
group, but I'll bet that diversity was also a powerful source of learning. For example, you
learned about several different ways that people plan projects. I suspect that different people
made different kinds of contributions based on different backgrounds and strengths, too.
It's interesting, too, that the instructor sent you back to "work it out," which was probably not
what you expected.
Bob
Good Communication Practices
 Motivate
 Sandwich business between two positives
 Exaggerate positive reinforcement
Good Communication Practices
Motivate Example
Thanks, everyone, for a fantastic week of discussions. I particularly enjoyed
reading your activity descriptions in this forum. I think that everybody gets the
idea of learning activities that require teamwork and active exploration and
generation of knowledge…
One request for future discussions: When you cite a reference in the text of
your message (Hue & Cry, 2007), please be sure to list the full citation (book
title, publisher, article title, journal name, volume, pages, etc.) at the bottom of
your posting like Mark did. It allows us to track down the source and read it
ourselves if we so choose. I am interested in reading several of the sources
cited during this discussion, but some would be hard to find.
I hope you experienced the benefits of collaboration in this activity; discussion
is the simplest form of collaboration, and I saw a lot of good ideas being
exchanged and elaborated on during this discussion. I liked Susan’s statement
about …
Good Communication Practices
Practice
Rewrite this instructor’s discussion forum response to clarify,
humanize, and motivate:
Student: I think patience is the most important quality. It’s more
important than any kind of knowledge. You have to have patience.
Instructor: This assertion needs evidence.
Summary
 Social presence is importance
 Social presence is created by:
 Initial contacts
 Active involvement
 Projection of personality
 Good communication
 Timely interaction
 Be visibly and substantially present in your course
each working day
 Write to clarify, humanize, and motivate