Richer Media for Ambiguity Reduction and Presence in

Online Classes

Dr. Brian Newberry

California State University

San Bernardino

The Opportunities of Online Education

•Reaching More Students

•Extending Learning Beyond Classroom Hours

•Scheduling Flexibility for Instructor

The Challenges of Online Education

•Meeting Student Needs

•Meeting Instructor Needs

•Reduction of Social/Professional Connections

•Reduction of Unplanned Learning

•Harder to "Wing It"

Media Richness

Media Richness Theory - Media can be objectively rated on the ability of that media to transmit both the information, and information about the information and the communicator such as body language, facial expressions etc.

Presence

The ability of a media to convey the impressions of the communicators to each other. There is some evidence that individuals have the ability to learn to use media that can give a particular medium more power than an objective rating might suggest.

Instructional Presence

Instructional Presence, the ability of media to support the students' sense of the instructor and the instructor to project themselves into the instructional activity.

Some of the “Secrets”

•Reduction of Ambiguity

•Rapid, Frequent, Personalized Communication

•Reduction of Non-Instructional Cognitive Overhead

•Layering Assistance

Task Ambiguity Ratings

•Ambiguity - meaning equivocal or open to interpretation, having more than one possible meaning.

•The greater the ambiguity the richer the media generally needed to make an activity work.

•Convergent - Divergent

•Procedural - holistic

•One Person-Team - Multi Person Team

Media Choices

Synchronous Vs. Asynchronous

Number of channels -text, audio, photographs, video

Matching Task and Media

Media Choices

Modern Bulletin Board

Blogs

Skype

Out On a Limb

Or: The Pros and Cons to Using Non-University Supported Tools

•What if it breaks?

•Students know what other classes use.

•What if the University Changes Systems?

Richer Media for Ambiguity Reduction and Presence in

Online Classes

Thank You!