Interactivity: A Forgotten Art?

Interactivity in learning is "a necessary and fundamental mechanism for knowledge acquisition and the development of both cognitive and physical skills" (Barker, 1994:1)

Interaction is intrinsic to successful, effective instructional practice as well as individual discover

h, cultivate, observe, and assess. The intent is to help students get into the habit of behaving intelligently. A Habit of Mind is a pattern of intellectual behaviors that leads to productive actions.

Persisting

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they never quit. —Conrad Hilton

RESEARCH IN ONLINE LEARNING COMMUNITY

High Social PresenceLearning in an online learning community occurs as an active social process that is defined as: "the level of social presence depends upon social context, online communication, and interactivity (Tu & McIsaac, 2002)." Online social presence (Hiltz, 1998) is required to ensure the online interaction necessary to sustain community activity. Social presence is a critical factor that affects the online learning community. Gunawardena and Zittle (1997) found that social presence is the predictive of the satisfaction of online learners with their learning. Social presence, online learners' social relationships, tasks being engaged in (Tu & Corry, 2002b), communication styles and personal characteristics have impacts on online learning (Tu & McIsaac, 2001). Therefore, researchers concluded that to foster an ideal online learning community, one should increase and idealize the level of social presence

Computer-mediated communication democratizes the online learning environment (DiMatteo, 1990; Rheingold, 1993; Sproull & Kiesler, 1991a

A rubric is an authentic assessment tool used to measure students' work. It is a scoring guide that seeks to evaluate a student's performance based on the sum of a full range of criteria rather than a single numerical score.

It is a formative type of assessment because it becomes an ongoing part of the whole teaching and learning process.

use a range to rate performance.

Presentation Objectives are to: 1) Educate faculty on the pedagogical uses of avatars in the online classroom, 2)Provide an opportunity for participants to practice developing their own avatar and 3)Promote interest and improve confidence in using avatars as part of established learning activities and spark generation of new ideas. Presentation Audience: Faculty who desire to see improvement in the richness of their students’ online experiences will find this presentation interesting and beneficial. Faculty who have never considered using or developed their own avatars will find practical assistance. Presentation Activities: In this highly interactive session, participants with laptop computers will have the opportunity to create and publish an avatar, which can be posted on their faculty webpage or other Web 2.0 forum. The facilitator will also present avatars developed by undergraduate students as part of a class project and will invite participants to generate ways that they can use this medium in own classrooms. Description: Avatars have typically been associated with gaming, recreation and entertainment, and most recently were the central characters in a hugely successful blockbuster movie. Their use in learning environments is much less popular, although it is growing. A central definition has not emerged, although the following are generally accepted: “a digital representation

Online instructors lament some of the same problems expressed by their students, not the least of which is the feeling of disconnection in the learning environmen

Allmendinger, K. (2010). Social presence in synchronous virtual learning situations: the role of nonverbal signals displayed by avatars. Educational Psychology Review, 22(1), 41-56

The article then discusses a number of educational techniques for avoiding these two pitfalls, including building more measures that support positive interdependence, individual accountability, and collaborative skills; increasing opportunities for the socio-emotional and affective exchanges between learners; adjusting the instructor’s and the learners’ role for CSCL environments; and increasing social presence, i. e. reducing the perceived distance between learners.

Not only does this promote positive effects, it also reduces the negative effects usually present in non-collaborative groups such as the free-rider or hitchhiking effect, social loafing, and the sucker effect. The free-rider or hitchhiking effect (Kerr & Bruun, 1983) exists when ‘‘group members exert less effort as the perceived dispensability of their efforts for the group success increases’’ (p. 78). In other words, they feel that the group is doing enough and that they don’t have to contribute. Social loafing (Latane ́ , Williams, & Harkins, 1979) exists when group members exert less effort as the perceived salience of their efforts for the group success decreases. In other words, as the group size increases so does the anonymity and the non-participation. The social loafer differs from the free rider in that the former lacks the motivation to add to the group performance, while the latter tries to profit from others while minimizing essential contributions. Finally, the sucker effect (Kerr, 1983) exists when the more productive group members exert less effort as the awareness of co-members free-riding increases. That group refuse to further support noncontributing members (they refuse to be ‘suckers’) and therefore reduce their individual efforts” (p. 339-40)

ndrogyny, anthropomorphism and credibility in online interactions.

In both online and offline interactions, the visual representation of people influences how others perceive them. In contrast to the offline body, an online visual representation of a person is consciously chosen and not stable

Results show that the characteristics of the avatar are used in the person perception process