Day: July 27, 2016

otl201 – Post 3

After reading the content of this lesson, it seems to me that social presence is the most important concept in distance education. Here are some ways that I apply in promoting social presence in my online courses:

  1. I always write a personalized welcome letter rather than sending a typical email using the suggested template. I think it is helpful to send a special welcome letter to each and every one of my students. This will make students in my online courses feel welcome and sense the faculty’s virtual presence from the very beginning of the course.
  1. In my personalized letter, I try to send them a short bio about myself. As teachers, we all know that it is important to raise students’ interests and engagement in the course. I believe I can increase students’ interests in the course with a short story displaying my professional career, fun aspect of my job and humorous personality. With the insights I obtained during this lesson, I am now determined to take this practice to the next level by adding a picture, an audio clip, or a video clip to add a human touch to my online courses.
  1. I always make good use of email. I attach images to my emails for many situations such as answering individual questions, providing feedback on assignments, motivating students to learn, and following up with students for special situations. I encourage students to do the same. They can write down their thoughts or questions on a piece of paper, take a picture of that and send that picture to me. This way both avoid writing lengthy messages and text-based communication.
  1. Using discussion board can be an effective technique for promoting social presence and increasing student-teacher and student-student interactions. Many educators in online courses use the discussion board. It is important to encourage students to get involved in the discussion and engaged in the conversation and guiding their learning. The challenge is that not all of us are active in participation. I hope that I have the chance to write more about this challenge in my next posts.

otl201 – Post 2

My first post of this course was brief and simple. After a quick introduction about myself, I read a haiku and used a picture of nature to set the stage for the short poem. I think that introductory post should effectively work in favor of social presence and supporting open communication. What can be more open than a haiku which doesn’t include any metaphors? I personally like this method as the teacher tries to set the stage for open yet respectful communication.

Two improvements that I might make in light of what I know about social presence since completing your first post is adding more information about myself and using humour in my speech. I learned in this post that two indicators of effective interpersonal communication are self-disclosure and use of humour.

I think adding a short story or bio representing details of personal life outside of class will be a good strategy to start an online course. Furthermore, as noted in the course, having a sense of humour can be useful and provides a more welcoming atmosphere among the members of learning community.

I believe the incorporation of various aspects of social presence in online and distance education can effectively increase both student-student and teacher-student interactions and will have a positive effect on the learning process. Additionally, open communication not only sets the stage for a good start but also helps in facilitating attention, motivation, and engagement.

We all know the rapport established between the teacher and the student is a key to effective teaching. I often see in my students’ evaluation that students describe successful teachers as enthusiastic. I think a strong sense of humor can play a major role in developing this enthusiasm. Besides, use appropriate humor will enhance a sense of community and learning effectiveness. When used appropriately, humor has the ability to trigger students’ engagement and improve the ability to learn.