Using Technology with Adult Learners Course (2012)

This space starts a new thread for the blog discussion of our book, Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to “Be There” for Distance Learners, with students in the course ADLDSP 707: Using Technology with Adult Learners at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Post your comments in this blog area by reflecting on the following questions:

·         Think about an online course you have taken in the past, what strategies were used to create a sense of presence? How did you feel presence impacted your learning?

·         How did your thinking, emotions, and behavior interplay with your sense of presence during the learning experience?

·         Reflecting on your past online course experience, what determinants of presence were used in the course to create presence? Please provide examples for each determinant of presence.

·         How do you define presence now?

·         Now that you know how important it is to create a sense of presence in online instruction, what strategies do you plan to use when designing your next online course?

Your insights are very important to us. Thank you for your participation.

Rosemary and Simone

eInterface

Have a Wonderful Holiday Season!

We'll be continuing our series on presence on January 9, 2012. Find out about ways in which presence can be experienced: types of experience, modes of presence, dimensions of the learner, and how to use the Being There for the Online Learner Model.

Meanwhile - have a wonderful holiday season!

Presence is rooted in the interactive perceptual process

Presence is rooted in the interactive (i.e., enactive) perceptual process (Noe, 2005) and should be viewed from different perspectives: social, psychological, and emotional.

Social presence surfaced in the 1970s when Short, Williams, and Christie (1976) wrote about individuals being seen as “real” when communicating using media. In this case, the amount of presence was based on the type of media used. Today, it is believed that the type of media used has little influence on social presence in online environments. Rather, social presence has more to do with how well individuals participating in online learning are successful in acknowledging or disregarding the presence of the medium (Lombard & Ditton, 1997) and feel a sense of “being together” with others (Biocca, Burgoon, Harms, & Stoner, 2001) as previously mentioned.

In the second perspective, according to Lombard and Ditton (1997), presence is a psychological state in which the technology becomes transparent to the user who no longer recognizes it in the learning experience, an illusion in which the technology seems to disappear and people and locations that are in reality separated, perceive and feel that they are present together in the same room. 

The third perspective, emotional presence, is the ability to genuinely show feelings through words, symbols, and interactions with others in the online environment. In this process, learners and instructors are emotionally present when they connect with others in an authentic way during the online learning experience. Throughout the perceptual process, emotions affect our behavior and thought and impact our experiences of presence. Emotions are key to perception; they guide us to focus on particular aspects of a situation, enable us to concentrate on that situation, connect the affective to the cognitive, and allow us to arrive at thoughtful and appropriate decisions for our actions (Alcañiz, Bañoa, Botella, & Rey, 2004).

Why is Presence So Important?

We are basically social by nature and when that social aspect is absent, we crave it and look for ways to accommodate absence and create presence. This social nature is deeply embedded in our perceptual process when interacting with others, not only in the real world, but also in the online environment. It is through the perceptual process that we interact with information and others within the online environment and require others to relate to us and work with us - this happens at the behavioral level.

Individually, each of us needs to make sense of information for our use, for sharing, and for further interacting with others. This refines and expands our knowledge. Individually, we search for appropriate resources to challenge, support, and enhance our experiences. We then re-examine the entire process by refining what we have integrated, and then circle back to repeat the process - this happens at the cognitive and emotional levels. We continuously go through this process in the online environment from an individual point of view; in other words, perceptually (Lehman, 1996; 2006). Because this process occurs at the subconscious level (Noe, 2005), it is difficult to notice when it is happening.

When thought, emotion, and behavior work together in our real world experiences, we believe that we have created a successful perceptual experience and a sense of presence. Often, we do not realize what happens when we are, for example, assigned to a small group in a face-to-face class (the environment); interacting with group members (with emotion); and focusing, following, and completing the group assignment (with thought, based on group behavior). This perceptual experience parallels the online learning experience, with the exception that in the online learning experience the instructor and learners are not in the same physical space. It is, therefore, necessary to intentionally rethink and redesign the course, incorporating the dynamic interplay of thought, emotion, and behavior to influence the perceptual process and create a sense of presence within the online environment.

The Concept of Presence in the Literature

In Kehrwald’s (2008) study, social presence is defined as the ability to demonstrate being in the online environment. This ability to be social in a virtual space is impacted by immediacy, awareness, and a willingness to engage in communication and interaction (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997). Tu & McIsaac (2002) have found that online context can also positively influence social presence when it is stimulating, expressive, carries feelings and emotions, and is significant, and implicit.

Projecting oneself onto an online group and identifying with that group can effectively influence online learning by creating a comfortable environment. Learners who perceive high social presence during online exchanges also think that they learn more by benefiting from the ideas of others (Caspi & Blau 2008). Learners need to be introduced to this notion of online community building, knowledge construction as a group, and ways of being present during online discussions.

Gunawardena (1995) has added the importance of online learner context, noting that the offline context where participants learn and their relationships within that context have an effect on the online learning experience. Lehman (2006) expands on this research of online social presence, community, and learner context by suggesting the creation of an environment that considers the perceptual nature of the learner, a perceptual systems approach. This approach considers learners as perceivers, who bring their individual knowledge, skills, attitudes, preferences, and diverse backgrounds to the online learning experience. From this perspective, learners are active perceivers, rather than passive receivers during the online learning experience.

Creating a Sense of Online Presence

Creating a sense of online presence enhances instructor-learner and learner-learner relationships. Our definition of online presence is "being there" and "being together" before, during, and at the end of the online experience. Since presence is not a thing but a process, it has a "look" and "feel." Presence looks and feels as though the instructor has placed the learner at the center of the course development and created the course for the learner. It looks and feels as though the instructor is accessible to the learners, the learners are accessible to the instructor and other learners, and the technology is transparent to the learning process.

Online presence is created through developing awareness, understanding, involvement through experience, and intentional planning and design throughout the course. Presence helps to break down feelings of isolation, involves participants in the learning process, brings learners together in a virtual community, and is key to learner retention.  

Online presence is more than engagement and includes the dynamic interplay of thought, emotion, and behavior as instructor and learners consciously and unconsciously experience both the real world and the online environment.

Why is it important to understand presence when creating and designing online courses?

As the Internet evolves in an informal social direction (Internet-based social networking tools), it points to the importance of creating a sense of presence in the more formal setting of teaching and learning  online. Understanding presence and how to create and design presence for online courses is “key.”

There is a difference between creating informal social presence for Facebook, Twitter, and other social media and creating presence for online courses. In the more informal setting we create presence spontaneously. In the more formal setting of online courses, we need to make a concerted effort to be aware of the intentions of others and their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. We need to use a systematic approach and “intentionally design.”

Research on co-presence and social interaction

Our interest in the concept of presence is particularly focused on the online environment. However. we are open to perspectives from different fields such as sociology, anthropology, and psychology, among others. In one of our presentations, a colleague mentioned the work of Erving Goffman. Goffman's work centers on social interactions and the meaning of co-presence in the face-to-face world.  His work explores the social organization of gathering and the presentation of self in everyday life. These concepts relate to our work on creating online presence. In the online environment, "being there" and "being together with others" is based on co-presence when individuals are interacting with each other.  We are only beginning to learn about Goffman's work and would like to explore more his concepts of co-presence and social interaction, and how they relate to the online environment. Our blog is open for anyone to chime in about this topic.

Teaching in the Online Environment Course

Ramo Lord’s Class Members,

Thank you for reading our book, Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to “Be There” for Distance Learners. Your insights are very important to us. This blog area has been reserved for the course Teaching in the Online Environment. Post your comments in this blog area by reflecting on the following questions:

·         Think about an online course you have taken in the past, what strategies were used to create a sense of presence? How did you feel presence impacted your learning?

·         How did your thinking, emotions, and behavior interplay with your sense of presence during the learning experience?

·         Reflecting on your past online course experience, what determinants of presence were used in the course to create presence? Please provide examples for each determinant of presence.

·         How do you define presence now?

·         Now that you know how important it is to create a sense of presence in online instruction, what strategies do you plan to use when designing your next online course?

Thank you.

Rosemary and Simone

eInterface

Using Technology with Adult Learners Course (2011)

Thank you for reading our book, Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to “Be There” for Distance Learners. Your insights are very important to us. This blog area has been reserved for the course ADLDSP 707: Using Technology with Adult Learners. Post your comments in this blog area by reflecting on the following questions:

·         Think about an online course you have taken in the past, what strategies were used to create a sense of presence? How did you feel presence impacted your learning?

·         How did your thinking, emotions, and behavior interplay with your sense of presence during the learning experience?

·         Reflecting on your past online course experience, what determinants of presence were used in the course to create presence? Please provide examples for each determinant of presence.

·         How do you define presence now?

·         Now that you know how important it is to create a sense of presence in online instruction, what strategies do you plan to use when designing your next online course?

Thank you.

Rosemary and Simone

eInterface