James Farmer (2004) Article Key Concepts

Having recently read and pondered this article three important concepts were revealed to me and have stuck in my mind since. These key concepts are outlined as follows:

• Social presence “is the ability of participants in community of inquiry to project themselves socially and emotionally, as “real people” i.e. their full personality through the medium of communication being used.” (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000, p 94)
• Cognitive presence is “the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection an discourse in a critical community of inquiry” (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000, p 94)
• Teaching presence is “the design, facilitation and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes”(Anderson et al, 2001)
  
  The bottom line is that technologies used e.g. OLE, Discussion Boards or Web logs need to allow for the natural elements of “Social presence”, “Cognitive presence” and “Teaching presence” so that “real people” projecting real emotions can participate in a real community of enquiry.
  
  Main Source: Farmer, J. incorporated subversion http://incsub.org/blog/2004/communication-dynamics-discussion-boards-weblogs-and-the-development-of-communities-of-inquiry-in-online-learning-environments