RSA #3

Module 5: RSA #3

Module 5 gives an in-depth introduction to an online learning community.  Palloff and Pratt give the readers a description of what an online community is composed of and how all aspects of online distance learning function.  Readers learn the roles and responsibilities of not only an online learning community facilitator, but also the participants.  As all students are different in the classroom, PalLoff and Pratt suggest that there are multiple “online” student personas as well.  Introverted students and extroverted students will come into different challenges in an online learning community, but can also flourish in different ways than as compared to face-to-face learning.  Clear planning and guidelines are a must for an online learning community in order to ensure that students feel safe and are learning.  The final chapter discusses some major issues that could arise in an online learning community and ways to cope and deal with these issues. 

The article that I chose discusses social presence’s effect on online-distance learning.  People questions and therefore did research on how social presence would effect higher-order thinking.  The article states that almost all the research found that social presence was not the redeeming factor in higher-order thinking, but in fact, independent work that gave timely instructor feedback produced the best results in the online learning classroom.  

I chose the article, “Social Presence within the Community of Inquiry Framework” because the required reading for module 5 discusses building an online personality and the importance of creating a social presence before the start of an online course.  In a sense this article states that the creation of social presence does not make or break an online learning experience.  Through my own person experience in the online learning community, I think that creating social presence in important, but for my personal preference, I agree that social presence, or lack thereof does not directly effect my level of thinking and therefore, learning.  

Annand, D. (2011). Social Presence within the Community of Inquiry Framework. International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, 12(5), 40-56.

Palloff, R. & Pratt, K.  (2007). Building Online Learning Communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom, (2nd ed.). San Franciso: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 978-0-7879-8825-8, pages 3-65.

Direct Link for Resource:  http://web.ebscohost.com.cucproxy.cuchicago.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9542ef44-b063-4263-8249-8f793405bee3%40sessionmgr113&vid=8&hid=123