Week 1 - Social Presence

Well, week one was full steam ahead as we, Matt and I, tried to get our project together while at the same time participating in the other group's ice breaker activity. Fortunately, social presence is a topic I've encountered in other classes so I was already aware of the importance for engaging students in a online course, both theoretically and from personal experience. Since the basis of learner centered construction of knowledge in an online course stems directly from active participation and engagement in the online learning environment motivation to participate is critical to online success. As both research, and again personal experience, assert affect can strongly influence motivation. Creating social presence in the online environment is an effective tool instructors can use to create a sense of community and belonging in the absence of the immediacy and physical presence students experience in face-to face courses. I know from my personal experience the more connected I feel to the instructor and my peers, the more I want to engage and participate in course. And as a result, the more I'm likely to learn.

Although I feel our activity fell a little bit flat, I gained a greater appreciation for the difficulty in creating social presence among online students. I liked the other group's activity for creating an ice breaker activity, and would like to try out my idea using Tokbox to leave short introductory video messages, or a personal show and tell given the chance. I enjoyed the Google Earth introductory activity as well. I think the ice breaker is a good way ease everyone into the course while at the same time allowing for some creativity, which might not otherwise be possible depending on course content, and the opportunity to learn new communication technologies. Developing technological literacy is an important part of the online experience and the ice breaker is a fun way to do so.

I know this is a short course, but social presence is only one leg of a three legged stool. I would have liked to had a discussion on cognitive and teacher presence as well.  I posted a link to an interesting article on the  topic, but don't think anyone bit. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/325/743.