7 Steps to Creating Presence in
Online Courses. Online teaching and learning should be an experience where
presence is felt by both instructors and learners. How is presence created?
3. The third step is LOOKING AT
ONLINE LEARNING AS A HUMAN EXPERIENCE. Credit Marshall McLuhan with researching
and discussing this as early as the 70’s - see his Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Other researchers have
built on this idea – John Short and
colleagues who developed a concept of presence (in the 70’s), Lani Gunawardena whose research emphasized
engaging learners (in the 80’s and
90’s), Palloff and Pratt who
more recently researched and wrote on creating community in cyberspace, Caspi and Blau who focused on online
learners as partners, and Lehman and Conceição whose book in 2010 Creating a Sense of Presence: How to ‘Be
There’ for Distance Learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass helps integrate
and expand on the research.
