In reflecting on this week’s resources and prompts, it strikes me that a huge factor affecting our experience of any individual interaction or participation in a community—whether mediated by digital technology or not—is our perception of the longevity of connections made.

How likely am I to run into you again?

For example, if I’m introduced to someone in person, my best guess as to the probability of us ever meeting again will impact how much I care about the relationship and even how I allow myself to behave within it; it will affect how real the relationship is to me—and perhaps even how real the other person is to me. If I meet someone in the flesh on a university campus where both of us are full-time students, the likelihood of us crossing paths again is relatively high compared with someone I might randomly meet in a part of town I’m rarely in. Still, the likelihood goes way up if I find we’re in the same program, interested in the same sorts of courses, and in the same year. If this is the case, my interlocutor is immediately more important to me, and the way I behave with them is also more important to me. It is in my own felt interest to maintain openness, cordiality and even a basic friendliness toward this person, as it could become awkward over time if I didn’t. However dull the intensity of our connection may be, this relationship (and who I am within it) will immediately matter more to me than many others.

And I doubt this is some personal quirk of mine; I think, however consciously, it plays into all of our interactions—again, whether mediated by digital technologies or not.

For another example, if I’m in an online course with people I have never met and have no expectation of ever meeting in person or elsewhere online, then the quality of my investment in the relationships formed, and my hope of finding a sense of belonging in the specific online community, will necessarily be relatively low. Yes, I’ll want to put my best foot forward and get along with everyone so as to facilitate harmonious collaborations, but my presence in the community will be qualitatively diminished in some way, because the entire community will exist in the compartment of my mind labeled “this one class I’m taking.” Of course this compartment could possibly open up to the rest of my life through some chance in-person meeting down the road, but it’s unlikely. For the time being, getting through the course remains the clear goal overarching all interactions within said compartment.

Presence, online and off

Now, my knee-jerk reaction to considering presence (social presence anyway) within online learning is that it is fundamentally less real simply by virtue of being online. And, to an extent, I hold with that reaction even after sober consideration. Embodiment makes a difference to humans—it just does and always will. I have been email penpals for years now with a fellow musician I admire and adore. But my adoration is necessarily tempered by the fact that he is not entirely real to me as a person, as we have never met, seen one another’s lips move in real time, or hugged. And yet, our friendship, such as it is, has proved durable. It is not enclosed within the mental compartment of any specific, short-term goal (such as completing this course). It is, in this sense, part of my real life.

So, how does this meditation on the significance of expected longevity in relationships speak to questions of online education? Well, for one thing it describes an important aspect of the student experience within online courses. That is, the nature of social stimulation within the course will differ from that found in in-person experiences. [Group work and even commenting on others’ work in this course, for example, will exist within what otherwise would be a social vacuum. And this is not a criticism!] So for teachers approaching online education, it is not merely a matter of replicating group experiences and their benefits online; it is a qualitatively different student experience from the start. Accordingly, the nature of their teaching presence in the course will be qualitatively different, whether they like it or not.

I think many teachers probably sense this truth, however they may articulate it, and this explains their reticence to approach online education as part of their professional activity. It is not teaching as they know it—not at all. It is, to many of them, a fundamentally different profession. And they’re not wrong.

Feature photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash