A presentation on the social element of online learning

1. Building a social environment online
Four main areas
• encouraging sense of community
• socialising into the community
• tasks and tools for the social environment
• role of the e-tutor

2. Basic principles
This Google Docs Community video illustrates some of the
basic principles of online community
Click image to view video.

3. “Being social” today...
tomorrow, who knows...
Click image to view video

4. Sense of community
Social presence has a positive
influence on learning
(Garrison et al., 1999)
supporting sociability
reducing anonymity
sense of belonging
netiqutte
building group dynamic
(Preece, 2001; Hockly, 2004)

5. The online social environment
Learning is a social process
(Vygotsky, 1978)
online identity
familiarising
bonding
connectedness
interaction
trust
(Rovai, 2002; Salmon, 2000 ; Lave&Wenger, 1991)

6. Designing tasks
5 principles of collaborative learning
• positive interdependence - all must succeed
• individual accountability - everyone makes active contribution
• interaction - interact meaningfully / exchange information
• social skills - leadership /conflict resolution / communication
skills (ensures effective functioning)
• team reflection - reflect whether team is functioning & make
action plan
(Kagan1985;Johnson & Johnson 1987; Slavin 1990)

7. Socialising tasks
• online jigsaw - post piece of info / every member posts reaction to
all others / each member collates & presents to group
• online project - assign roles / divide up work / provide resources
online / timeline
• "Hollywood Stars"- post name of film actor and/or character /
others guess why person relates to them
• "What do You Do ?” - post three hyperlinks with clues about
profession or interests / others ask questions to guess

8. How do different technologies
help us ?

9. create

10. provide access

11. contact

12. express

13. interact

14. Tools...
• blog: personal online journal - often updated daily
• glog (graphical blogs): blogs that include audio and
video
• wiki : collaborative information website that includes
work from many different authors
• podcasts: collection of digital media files distributed
online
• video sharing websites: users upload, view and
share video
• social bookmarking: web based collaborative
repository of internet bookmarks
• voxopop: share audio recordings of
introductions with other participants
• glogster : digital poster sharing

15.
Chats
synchronous communication
online
• text chat
• audio or voice chat
• public chat
•private chat
(Dudeney & Hockly)
(How to teach English with
technology, 2009)

16. Educational chat
• free topic chats
• collaborative, task oriented
chats
• Informative or academic
chats
•Practice chats
(Gonzalez)

17. Role of the e-tutor
• participant induction
• guidance for online behaviour
• encouraging bonding- similar interest groups
• set up socialising area
• socialising & collaborative e-tivities
• encourage networking
• enhance social presence
• bridge social, cultural,
& learning environments
(Salmon, 2000; Rovai, 2002)