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Presence, a sense of “being there,” is critical to the success of designing, teaching, and learning at a distance using both synchronous and asynchronous (blended) technologies. Emotions, behavior, and cognition are components of the way presence is perceived and experienced and are essential for explaining the ways we consciously and unconsciously perceive and experience distance education. A more complete understanding of the integration of the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional components of presence into distance education teaching and learning will impact the design, instructional facilitation, and experience of distance education faculty and learners. This paper focuses on a literature review of the research in the areas of: emotion as indispensable to the perception of reality, and presence and the role of emotion in creating presence. It builds on models from this research and presents: (a) a framework for creating presence in the blended distance education experience, (b) implications for practice, (c) implications for future research, and (d) a suggested combination of methods for measuring presence in distance education experiences.

they identify and define nine principles of learning that allow such games to have valuable potential as tools for educators: the perception-action cycle, embodied cognition, social attributes of situated learning, boundary constraints on behavioral trajectories, affordance-effectivity duals, goal-directed action, contextualized learning, repetition, and detection of the raison d'être. They then provide examples of these principles in the case of two MMOGs—The Sims Online and Quest Atlantis—in order to illustrate the potential of this technology to enhance student learning in educational contexts.

Neuroimaging studies and measurement of brain chemical transmitters reveal that students' comfort level can influence information transmission and storage in the brain (Thanos et al., 1999). When students are engaged and motivated and feel minimal stress, information flows freely through the affective filter in the amygdala and they achieve higher levels of cognition, make connections, and experience “aha” moments. Such learning comes not from quiet classrooms and directed lectures, but from classrooms with an atmosphere of exuberant discovery (Kohn, 2004).

Social constructivist theory has advanced the notion that distance education is inferior, because effective learning is thought to require immersion in a cognitive apprenticeship under the guidance of a mentor. Effective learning is said to be situated in activity, context, and culture as a collaboration in a community of practice. Administrators and practitioners in distance education are confronted with a challenge to the efficacy of their endeavors. The authors briefly trace the evolution of social constructivism, the influence of Piaget and Vygotsky, and analyze the effects of contemporary social constructivism with implications for instructional theory and practice.