To Consider - Presence
Social Presence
The opportunities for students and lecturers to communicate, interact and learn with and from each other are amplified and extended by digital media. But it’s not the media or tools that establishes the connections. It’s the way that people use the available media and formats to create intimacy and immediacy
Students feel the need for a connection to a lecturer and each other. Incorporating interactive technologies in a course does not improve interpersonal connections. Social presence describes how people interact socially in digital learning environments. Without a clear perception of connection through social presence, students may lose motivation, or feel isolated. Learning is a social process.
For a course designer and facilitator, creating a social presence in an online course may be a vague and unfamiliar request. Presence is easily established, but requires some forethought and planning. Below are some examples of online activities that could create social presnce
- A welcome letter.
- A personalized introduction.
- An online bio introducing yourself, with image and perhaps a hyperlink to another online page that adds a human touch to the online classroom.
- Appropriate use of emails, both group and individuals
- Frequent course announcements
- Active participation on the discussion board
- Synchronous communication to enhance social presence
- Web 2.0 tools like blogs or Twitter
- A concluding remark and best-wishes statement.
Social Presence is considered a central concept in online learning. In an online course, ‘Presence’ is understood as the ability of people “to project their personal characteristics into the community, thereby presenting themselves to other participants as ‘real people’”. (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000, p. 89)