Social Presence: Photos, Gifs, and Memes

In my last post, I introduced the concept of Social Presence in online communication as "how 'real' the other person feels to you when communicating online." I suggested that calling on people by name is one way to boost social presence; this is just one simple thing you can do to foster a learning community.

Ready for another easy thing? Think about using images in your course as a way to boost social presence. Photos, animated gifs, and memes can all be tools for increasing that sense that the people with whom you are interacting are real human beings.

Photos

Most of us who are active on social media already know the value of having an avatar photo of some sort, to graphically and visually identify the person with whom you are interacting. And while some folks will use a cartoon character, or a photo of a celebrity, or a logo, or some other representation, a grand majority of people will use a photo of themselves to identify themselves.

Most learning management systems (LMSs) have a feature that allows--or even requires--everyone in the course to have some sort of avatar. This is a simple way to increase social presence: ask students to include a photo of themselves as their avatar. You can almost certainly find a tutorial for how to do this by googling the name of your LMS (e.g., Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, etc.) and adding the search term "profile picture." And, of course, follow the Golden Rule for Distance Teaching: if you ask your students to post a profile picture, post one yourself as well!

Photos can also be a great way to liven up a course announcement: include a photo of yourself, of an object in your office/classroom/campus to illustrate, of your pet (I find students always are happy to see pet photos!), etc. This is some self-disclosure on your part that can model and encourage students to share about themselves as well.

Animated Gifs and Memes

There has actually been some academic research done about the benefits of including animated gifs and memes in your online communications to boost social presence. (Seriously! Check out this, this, this, or this, if you're interested.) But even before I learned about any of this research, I had been using gifs and memes as a way of boosting social presence in my own online courses. And I've found it is something students respond to as well; when I survey students at the end of the course for things they liked/disliked, I have never had a student say they disliked gifs and memes, and I seem to always have a handful of students at least who call this out as something that they enjoyed. So...anecdotal evidence here, for sure, but I don't think it could hurt to try it. :-)

I try to work gifs into my assignment descriptions or announcements. These can be just for fun, or they can be purposeful. For example, when I'm introducing a team project, I might use this classic gif from High School Musical:

Via giphy.com

Or if I'm giving a "great work, everyone!" message in an announcement, it might be a "Give yourself a high five!" with this gif:

Image via giphy.com

Or  maybe you'll make your own gifs with a tool like MakeAGif.com, and you'll end up with something like this:

I made this one a long, long time ago.

Memes...ah, how about memes?

WARNING! MISUSING MEMES IS A GUARANTEED SIGNAL TO YOUR STUDENTS THAT YOU ARE AN OLD.

But I still use memes, even though my teenaged kids tell me I'm hopelessly out of touch with "meme culture." My students generally seem to get what I'm going for--and I admit that I am an old--and I've had a few specifically tell me that they find them hilarious. (Though they might be laughing at me, rather than with me...but I'm okay with that, if it helps to build some social presence in the class!)

What kind of memes do I share? Usually geeky, content-specific memes. For example, when I'm introducing a research project, I might use this one:

This one is all over the web, but I found it here.

Is this a bunch of ridiculousness? Maybe! (Well, not the photos part--that part seems pretty solid.) Are gifs and memes going to win you accolades as teacher of the year? Unlikely. But taking a playful approach to your pedagogy like this might just help to win students over, and it will almost certainly boost the social presence of your online course.

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)