Online Source: Social Presence: The Secret Behind Online Collaboration By Mary Beth Lakin
Our reading this week, brings up many negatives of having such a large variety of online communities. People are less likely to develop that human thread that connects us to having relationships with other people. Online communities need to establish social presence and a feeling of belonging. In addition, younger people who are born with handheld technologies available are becoming overwhelmed with the constant updating of their lives. When academic opportunities for online communities mesh “too much sharing of personal information online on a daily basis is becoming exhausting [to young people]” (as cited in Palloff p. 35). Overall, social presence has to be introduced and maintained if it is to overcome these obstacles.
As for the American Council for Education(ACE) article, they believe the key to the best online learning is the human interaction that’s associated with it. Here they examine how both a global telecommunications company and a military school create a sense of community through virtual means. Emails and conference calls are the normal collaborative tools for the company. The school uses a virtual homeroom to view online photos of classmates, before they meet face to face for two sessions out of their 40 week program. Both examples are building a community with technological communication that otherwies take place face to face..
Both sources respond to social presence in community. The reading critiques the undesirable aspects of virtual learning. Some may prefer knowing the drawbacks upfront, then they know what they are getting into. The ACE article is more positive about using collaborative communities and the good it is doing for our global community. As my blog title hints, community is beyond the four walled classroom. Community is beyond our neighborhoods of driveways, sidewalks, and mailboxes. Communities and neighborhoods are now both virtual and actual, both global and local (Palloff, 35). Finding unlimited communities in these networks, can be very good for business and education. Is a bigger community a bad thing? We have a variety of resources, some valid and most garbage. Even companies like BING are saying our community is too vast with their “What has Search Overload done to us?” motto. Do you think search overload has broadened our communities too wide for our own good? Explain.
References:
References:
Palloff, Rena M. and Pratt, Keith. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom (pp. 3-65). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Lakin, M.B. (2011).Social Presence:The Secret Behind Online Collaboration. American Council on Education, Retrieved fromhttp://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=11811
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