To Be And Not To Be: Physical Absence and Virtual Presence in Online Learning [849] Home : ALT's Online Winter Conference 2020

Public Group Active 10 months ago

Wed, Dec 16 2020, 11:10am – 12:00pm

Authors: Stuart Taylor, and Ingeborg van Knippenberg

Description

In response to requirements for emergency provision, many of us who supported learning in institutions were tasked in the first instance with providing equivalent educational experiences to the original face-to-face situation. In doing so, there was an implicit privileging of and emphasis on a kind of physical presence and the first response in many cases was to try and emulate that virtually (Govindarajan and Srivastava 2020; Rayment-Pickard 2020; Dickinson 2020). However, digital presence manifests in unfamiliar, unexpected ways, and educators and learners new to synchronous online delivery experienced discord between familiar in-person being and virtual presence (Garrison & Anderson, 2003;Dilling et al. 2020). Online, presence is channelled in limited ways that fragment reality – can you hear me? can you see me? – while affording new spaces (neither here nor there, only partially perceivable) in which to work and be.

This presentation will consider the issue of presence: beginning with an interactive activity to demonstrate the strange ways in which we communicate (or don’t) online, we will then explore the findings of a recent two-stage redevelopment of programme provision (first a contraction in physical time and space; then, in response to the pandemic, a shift online). Finally, we will consider how stranger (and estranging) theoretical frameworks – specifically Derrida’s “hauntology” (Specters of Marx 1994) – can help us appreciate and make effective use of the productive weirdness of virtual presence as we move beyond emergency provision.