A bit of background...

Identity, creative agency and participatory literacy: developing new approaches to supporting social and situated learning communities

A bit of background...Cloudworks: a place to share, find and discuss learning and teaching ideas and experiences

EVO2011/12: Tutoring with Web 2.0 Tools - Designing for Social Presence

Social presence within a community of inquiry

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.

the degree of salience of the other person in a mediated interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal interaction(Short et al. 1976)

social presence can ‘be cultured’ […] and is both a factor of the medium and of the communicators and their presence in a sequence of interactions(Gunawardena and Zittle 1997)

the ability of learners to project themselves socially and affectively into a community of inquiry(Rourke et al. 1999)

the social presence construct […] hypothesizes modes of social presence including the textual demonstration of affect, group cohesion, and open communication necessary to establish a sense of trust and, ideally, membership in a community dedicated to joint knowledge construction.(Shea et al. 2010)

Social presence has been defined as...

Swan’s (2002) ‘Social Presence Indicators’ building on Rourke et al. (1999)Affective Interactive Cohesive

Paralanguage Greetings and salutations

Acknowledgement

Emotion Vocatives Agreement/disagreement

Value Group reference Approval

Humour Social sharing Invitation

Self-disclosure Course reflection Personal advice

Swan, K. (2002). Building communities in online courses: the importance of interaction. Education, Communication and Information, 2(1), 23-49.

“Hi [participant],Thanks for that. […] I thought that the extended deadline was for the wiki one. I KNOW, HOW SILLY AM I? Never mind, it's all about learning eh?”

“Thanks for this [participant]. The questionnaire you propose for scenario 2 would certainly not be an easy one to write. […] Would there by any useful follow up to these […]?”“Enjoyed reading these [participant] and as you can see they made me think!”

“Hi [participant], good to meet you! Do they still have concrete cows in Milton Keynes? I think you're very lucky to be close to The O.U.... think I saw the concrete cows on a roundabout?Looking forward to our Elluminate sessions together!”

Morgan’s (2011) critique of Garrison et al. (2000)

“[CoI] does not consider the complexities of the community's global and local contexts, the potential multi-linguistic demands of the teaching and learning contexts, and how power, agency, and identities are negotiated in these multicultural contexts” (2011, p. 2)

Morgan, T. (2011). Online classroom or community-in-the-making? Instructor conceptualizations and teaching presence in international online contexts. Journal of Distance Education, 25(1), 1-15.

2. Social presence is both the means and the end of online interaction for learning and teaching since it creates the environment in which interaction is enabled

3. Social presence is established, developed and maintained by ongoing demonstration of social presence in the community through visible action (see also (Kehrwald 2008, 2010)

A few emerging conclusions...

Kehrwald, B.A. (2010). Being online: Social presence and subjectivity in online learning. London Review of Education, 8(1), 39–50.Kehrwald, B. (2008). Understanding Social Presence in text-based online learning environments. Distance Education, 29(1), 89-106.

1. Social presence becomes a direct facilitator for cognitive presence when it is important to sustain interaction i.e. in a distance learning or training context

5. Social presence therefore becomes one of the core e-literacy skills participants in online communication in communities of inquiry have to learn (see also “participatory literacy” (Pegrum 2009)

6. There are significant implications for tutors working with students online both in terms of their positioning in the learning relationship, and the skills they themselves need to develop and demonstrate

A few emerging conclusions...

Pegrum, M. (2009). From blogs to bombs: The future of digital technologies in education. Perth: University of Western Australia Press.

4. Establishing norms of communication in diverse and complex online groups can be difficult, and these can become an obstacle in the process of establishing social presence

(Re) positioning

Creative agency

Identity

Galley et al., 2012

Cohesion

Discussion• Does it make sense as a model? Where are the gaps

and inconsistencies?

• How useful do you think it might be in conceptualising what happens in online (or indeed face-to-face/ blended) learning and teaching environments?

• How it might be used by learners and tutors to reflect on their interactions and responses and inform their actions?

Does it make sense as a model? Where

are the gaps and inconsistencies?

How useful do you think it might be in conceptualising what happens in online (or indeed face-to-face/ blended) learning and teaching

environments?

How it might be used by learners and tutors to reflect on their interactions and responses

and inform their actions?

Community Indicators Framework