This document summarizes a presentation about using social media to develop social presence in the German language classroom. It begins with definitions of social presence from literature and discusses its evolution from early computer-mediated communication research to the modern Community of Inquiry framework. The presentation then describes a study where students collaborated on Facebook in German. Results showed students developed social, interactive, and cohesive social presence through affective communication, questions, and references to the group. Interviews found students perceived the activity as fun, collaborative, and a way to learn about different cultures while improving German.

1. Social media and social presence in the German language classroom
Vera Leier
GSAA conference 2018

2. Agenda
Social Presence
History
• Definitions
Social Presence
Evolution
• CMC
• Learning
Recent Work
• Facebook
LeierGSAA conference 2018

3. History of Social Presence (SP)
• Social presence is the degree of salience (i.e., quality of state of being
there) between two communicators using a communication medium.
(short, Williams, and Christie, 1976).
• Intimacy= joint function of eye contact, physical proximity, smiling,
etc. (Argyle & Dean, 1965)
• Immediacy= the relationship between the speaker and the objects he
communicates about, the addressee of this communication, or the
communication itself (Wiener & Mehrabian, 1968)
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

4. LeierGSAA conference 2018

5. What is Social presence?
• Property of media used in communication exchange (Short, Williams,
& Christie, 1976)
• The experience of being together, telepresence (Collins and Murphy,
1997)
• Self-projection into a group (Rourke et al. 2001)
• Recognition of the potential for two-way communication and
psychological involvement of perceived access to another human
mind (Nowak and Biocca,2001)
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

6. Various Definitions
Social Presence is:
• “the degree to which a person is perceived as a ‘real person’ in mediated
communication” (Gunawardena, 1995, p. 151)
• ….the ability of learners to project themselves socially and affectively into
a community of inquiry (Rourke et al., 1999)
• ….”the ability of participants in a community of inquiry to project
themselves socially and emotionally as ‘real people’ through the medium
of communication being used” (Rourke et al., 1999, p. 94)
• …the degree of feeling, perception, and reaction of being connected by
CMC (Tu & McIsaac, 2002)
• “…….a student’s sense of being in and belonging in a course and the ability
to interact with other students and an instructor” (Picciano, 2009., p…)
GSAA conference 2018
Leier

7. Timeline
Phase Period Research Focus of research
1 1970s Short et al. telecommunications
2 1990s to early 2000s Gunawardena
Garrison et al.
Tu et al.
Swan
Richardson
CMC and online learning
3 Mid 2000s to present Garrison
Kehrwald
Picciano
Kreijns
Swan
Lowenthal
Online learning and Community of Inquiry
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

8. Community of Inquiry (CoI)
The Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison et al., 2000)
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

9. Three categories of Social Presence indicators
• Affective communication
Expression of emotions
Use of humour
Self-disclosure
• Interactive communication
Vocatives
Refers to group using inclusive pronouns
Phatics, salutations
• Cohesive communication
Continuing a threat
Referring to other messages
Compliment
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10. GSAA conference 2018 Leier

11. Example of Social Presence in online learning:
Telecollaboration on Facebook
• Design
• Data
• Data analysis
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

12. Why Facebook
GSAA conference 2018 Leier
Several times a day
Once a day
Once a week or
less frequently

13. Design and methods
Design Methods
28 participants
6 weeks (one term)
5 tasks
(10% of overall assessment)
Questionnaires:
11 Pre-questionnaires
12 Post-questionnaires
Interviews:
9 Semi-structured interviews
Facebook-logs (4607 words)
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

14. Task design
• Topics 1 and 2 = personal biography (task type one, monologic), weak
Topics 3 and 4 = comparison and critical analysis (task type two,
reflective, intercultural), strong
Topic 5= presentations in mixed groups (joint product- global
citizenship)
Topics for the presentation:
Holidays -Easter, Christmas, Birthday?
National holidays - Independence Day, Waitangi Day
Winter and Summer in Finland and in New Zealand
(Waire & O’Dowd, 2009;
Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001)
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

15. Research questions
RQ1: How do students develop social presence on Facebook-group?
RQ2: How do students perceive the online community collaborating on
a Facebook group?
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

16. Facebook logs and social presence (students)
coding protocol and results
Definitions, examples posts comments
Affective
>expression of emotion
>use of humor
>self-disclosure
>punctuation
Emoticons (wave, smiley, surprise, sad)
‘lol’, irony
information in tasks
double exclamation marks, question marks
30
2
75
6
34
2
14
2
Interactive
>asking questions
>compliment
>like
>seen
Warum benutzt du Englisch? Kann dein Hund
Tricks?
Tolles Video, das Mädchen ist so hübsch
1
0
332
3080
19
6
7
0
Cohesive
>referring to group
>greetings
>pronouns
Hey guys- grammar tips/ Alles klar? Hallo team.
‘uns’, ‘ihr’
4
10
2
0
0
0
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

17. Examples of Facebook contents
Affective:
• Ich bin nicht so gut mit Videos.
• Hallooo!!!
• Ich liebe ein gutes Dessert!!!!
Interactive:
• Welche Farbe benutzt du für malen?
• We have to click to download (help each other)- language= English…
• Was für ein süsser Hund!
Group cohesion:
• Hi team
• Ich hoffe, ihr hattet ein schönes Wochenende.
• German noun genders (table posted), label of NZ wine which has Finnish name, flags on title page
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

18. Results: Facebook group
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

19. Results: Interviews and post-questionnaire
How did students perceive activity?
• Our group found text communication over Facebook messenger useful.
• That collaboration made it more fun.
• The difference of the whole project compared to "normal" ways of
studying.
• I have learnt about Finnish culture and traditions, which I found interesting
and really enjoyed!
• I have learnt more about both of our cultures while improving my German
• There are many different people from all over learning German.
• Meeting new people.
• How to collaborate with "strangers”.
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

20. How did students perceive activity?
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21. Other Social networking projects
•
GSAA conference 2018 Leier

22. Thank you 
vera.leier@canterbury.ac.nz
slides@slideshare.net