Building a social environment onlineFour main areas 

• encouraging sense of community

o socialising into the community

o tasks and tools for the social environment

• role of the e-tutor

Basic principles

This Google Docs Community video illustrates some of the basic principles of online community 

Click image to view video.

“Being social” today...                                                     tomorrow, who knows... 

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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)

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)    

• 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)

Designing tasks5 principles of collaborative learning

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 

How do different technologies help us ?

create

provide access

contact

express

interact

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

Chatssynchronous communicationonline

   • text chat• audio or voice chat• public chat•private chat (Dudeney & Hockly)(How to teach English with technology, 2009)

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

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)