Mechanizing People and Pedagogy: Establishing Social Presence in the Online Classroom

Abstract

This research addresses the affordances of using Voki avatars to create a sense of social presence in an asynchronous online writing classroom setting. Digital media afford online educators the opportunity to harness different technologies and new ways of being in a digital classroom that can enhance student engagement in ways similar to yet unlike face-to-face instruction, but this current research questions the effectiveness of these technologies. Original data was obtained from forty students in an online writing course who responded to open-ended questions about their perception of social presence. This study reiterates the importance of establishing social presence in an online course, but suggests students may find specific Web 2.0 technology less effective than other pedagogical methods.

Exploring students' perceptions and the significance of social and cognitive presence in their educational voyage

“…According to the hypothesis, the capacity of different communication channels to transmit social cues influences the degree of social presence felt by participants. When applied to educational contexts, various elements determine the degree of social presence, including communication tools, interaction design, teacher presence, and student-student interactions (Roque-Hernández et al, 2021;Gray & DiLoreto, 2016;Cunningham, 2015). The Community of Inquiry (CoI) concept, developed by Garrison (2016), is another set of theoretical foundations and dimensions of social presence.…”

Foreword: Turning Research into Practice,

“…I also recognized how important it was for instructors to establish their own social presence. Cunningham (2015) found that two key components of social presence in an online course are "a present and responsive instructor who can provide relevant feedback . .…”

Connecting theory to practice

“…As in library instruction, writing instructors have also only recently begun to explore the potential uses of the CoI theoretical framework (Kim, 2016). Much of the work that has been done has focused on specific presences within the CoI theoretical framework as these relate to first-year writing courses: social presence (Cunningham, 2015;Lomicka & Lored, 2012), teaching presence (Docker, 2016;Grigoryan, 2017) and cognitive presence (Comer, Clark, & Canelas, 2014). Other studies look at all three presences in relation to providing online feedback (Cox, Black, Heney, & Keith, 2015;Yang, 2016).…”