1. Benjamin Kehrwald, Massey University College of Education
Social presence and technology-mediated social process: Examining the social engine of online learning and teaching
Benjamin Kehrwald,
Massey University College of Education

2. My Interests Online communication Mediated experience
Learning to learn online
Learning designs which emphasize learning as a social process
Online teaching
Lifelong learning, adult learning, non-formal learning

3. Where I’m coming from

4. Background
Learning is a key focus of formal education, especially post-compulsory education
Online education (or online learning) has become increasingly commonplace as education providers seek to open new markets or cater to existing markets in more flexible ways.
Learning online is often a social endeavour. The technological infrastructure affords social connectivity which creates opportunities for technology-mediated social activity.

5. Practical Problems?
Limited understanding of teaching-learning processes (face-to-face or otherwise) which make moves to online delivery more difficult
Assumptions about teachers’ abilities to teach online
Assumptions about participants willingness and ability to communicate online and engage with technology-mediated social processes

6. Broad Issues
Online learning activity: what are we asking learners to do?
Skills and abilities: Do online learners know how to ‘learn online’?
Online communication skills: What do ‘interaction’, ‘dialogue’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘community’ look like?
Issues of experience: Disembodiment, mediation, social and psychological distance
Agency and control: Does the technology determine learner behaviour or do learners have agency over the technology?

7. Challenges with online communication
Limits of media
Online communication requires particular skills
The lack of physical presence
Missing communicative codes
Questions about experienced reality and the authenticity of communicative exchanges
Lack of communicative context
Potential loss of the ‘human’ element of communication

8. The paradox
Despite apparent challenges, a significant portion of users of text-based communication report overwhelmingly positive experiences with online communication. They refer to interpersonal connection, richness of interactions and productive qualities of their online relationships… This suggests that online communication can be a rich, rewarding experience which is highly engaging and even ‘addictive’. How is this possible given the apparent limitations of the medium?

9. Broad questions
How does the process of mediation shape our lived experiences of online learning, especially our experiences of one another in mediated social activity? How do these experiences affect activity in technology-mediated situations? More particularly, what are the nature, role and function of social presence in technology mediated social learning processes?

10. The focus
Presence theory …is concerned with the effects of mediation on experience “especially as our awareness of the mediation oscillates, flickers and sometimes fades” (Biocca, Burgoon, Harms, & Stoner, 2001, p. 1). Social presence …involves the experience of being with another salient social actor despite the fact that the experience is mediated by technology.

11. Specific questions What is social presence?
What role does social presence play in technology-mediated social processes?
How does it work?
What relationships exist between the role and funtion of social presence and processes such as interpersonal interaction? Productive collaboration? The development of online communities?

12. (more) Specific questions
What do we know about the role of social presence in online communication (in technology-enhanced learning)?
What do online teachers need to know and do to promote effective online communication?
Do learners in technology-mediated learning situations experience social presence as a property of media or as a feature of human activity and agency?
How does social presence operate within the tension between technological determinisms and human agency to promote productive learning activity?
Following, what are the implications for the design, development and use of technology-mediated learning situations in networked learning?

13. The research question
How do learners experience social presence and technology-mediated social processes in text-based online learning environments?

14. A definition drawn from learner experience…
Social presence is…
…an individual’s ability to demonstrate his/her state of being in a virtual environment and so signal his/her availability for interpersonal transactions

15. Key features of Social Presence
Two key aspects of social presence:
there is an ‘other’ party present in the environment as evidenced by their contributions.
the ‘other’ exists and is identifiable as a real person: a human being, with all the characteristics thereof, including personality, emotion, personal history, and context

16. Operation of Social Presence
Communicators project a social presence
Recipients read social presence cues and interpret them to get a sense of the ‘other’
Established from a point of first contact with an ‘other’
Develops over time based on number, frequency and quality of interactions.

17. Social presence is demonstrative.
It is premised upon an individual's ability to make observable demonstrations of presence and thus project her/himself into the social environment or situation.

18. Social presence is dynamic
…in the sense that a participant’s social presence fluctuates based on the number, frequency and quality of interactions.

19. Social presence is cumulative
…insofar as it is based upon ongoing demonstrations of presence and a sense of continuity.

20. A continuum of presence

21. Effects of social presence
Mediated communication seems unmediated
Communicative partners are experienced as ‘real’
Interactions are highly salient
Relations can develop
Social presence promotes further interaction
Social presence cues and the relations between communicators provide communicative context
Increasing degrees of social presence are accompanied by increasing psychological and behavioural involvement

22. Social Presence and social processes

23. Social presence as a form of subjectivity
Subjective Agency
Users exercise agency over the deterministic effects of the technology
Users fill communicative gaps via projection and seeing as
Users give others privileged access to mental states
Users experience one another in unique and idiosyncratic ways
Subjective Perspective
Users assert perspectives based on unique points of view and interpret others’ messages in the context of the others’ perspectives
Intersubjectivity
Users learn to project and read social presence cues by observing others

24. Implications
The establishment, cultivation and operation of social presence is dependent on the participants in the environment. What learners do affects their social presence

25. Implications
The abilities to cultivate a social presence and read the social presence of others as part of online communication and interaction are learned The abilities to read and convey social presence is cultivated through experience, including the experience of interacting with more capable peers As learners gain experience, their abilities to read and convey social presence improves

26. Implications
In using social presence cues to cultivate online presence, read the presence of others and engage in social processes, learners exercise agency over technology.
Social presence is a form of democratic rationalisation in which users realise productive activity in spite of limiting or difficult conditions

27. So what…?

28. The intention:
“…to develop a perspective on [online] learning that tries to articulate the overall relationship between technology and the policies and pedagogies applied in the name of [online] learning.
That perspective needs to emphasize choice and the ways in which human intervention mobilizes technologies…rather than being the simple outcome of the technology itself”
(Jones & Steeples, 2002, p. 5)

29. Notes for Practice
The abilities to convey and read social presence in text area learned skills. Therefore, opportunities to learn about social presence, explicitly or implicitly can be created.
Interaction and social presence are complimentary processes
Learners need the ability, opportunity and motivation to interact.
Like learners, online teachers must cultivate online communication skills.

30. Notes for Practice Activities should be structured to
(a) provide models of good practice in online communication, including the cultivation of social presence
(b) motivate learners to establish and cultivate a positive social presence
(c) create explicit opportunities for the establishment of online social presence
(d) generate interpersonal interaction that supports ongoing demonstrations of presence and the development of relations between individuals; and
(e) structure relatively low-risk experiences from which learners can learn to both convey an ongoing social presence and read the presence of others.

31. Notes for Practice Online teaching should include
Modelling of exemplary online communication
Obvious teaching presence
Establishment of a ‘risk free’ communicative environment
Encouragement and positive reinforcement of desired behaviours
Explicit teaching related to social presence and online social activity, including clear expectations, protocols and procedures

32. Notes for Practice
Course design and development should include Explicit information about the relationship between overall course processes and constituent tasks Explicit purposes for interactive/social tasks Clear structural information (e.g. ‘directions’) reinforced by environmental structures and the choice of technology tools Opportunities for formal (structured) and less formal interaction

33. Questions?

34. My work
Kehrwald, B. A. (2008). Understanding social presence in text-based online learning environments. Distance Education, 29(1),
Kehrwald, B. A. (2010). Being online: Social presence and subjectivity in online learning. London Review of Education, 8(1),
Kehrwald, B. A. (2010). Democratic Rationalisation on the Network: Social Presence and Human Agency in Networked Learning. Paper presented at the 7th International Conference on Networked Learning.
Kehrwald, B. A. (2010). Social presence and online communication: A response to Mersham. Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, 14(1),
Kehrwald, B. A. (2010). Towards more productive online discussions: Social presence and the development of interpersonal relations. In L. Shedletsky & J. E. Aitken (Eds.), Cases on online discussion and interaction:Experiences and outcomes.