Electronic Classroom, Electronic Community - Information Communication Technologies for Human Services Education and Delivery - page 95

students said this helped by reducing their sense of
anxiety about contributing to the discussions and
it provides evidence confirming the importance of
teaching staff modelling the type of interactions
and engagement they want from their students
(Salmon 2001). Most of these students had very
little experience in the online classroom and for
many there was no sense of how to be . They had
not developed an online voice or sense of identity
in this environment.
The design of the Virtual Social Space that
the students in the Sheffield University course
encountered tried to reduce their anxiety by hav-
ing the social environment completely separate
from the prescribed learning environment. The
Virtual Social Space was built in a separate online
environment altogether. The project was designed
to allow students to own this space through their
management of it. However, knowing how to be
and achieving a sense of social presence, a sense
that the space was a lived place - was not mod-
elled by anyone. Not only was this an unfamiliar
environment for students, but activity in the space
was not being driven or modelled by teaching staff.
There were no course related learning activities
in the space and it was not integrated into the
students' online learning environment. The experi-
ences of students from the first and second case
studies confirms Salmon's (2001) arguments for
the modelling of behaviour by teaching staff in
what she defines as the “online socialization” stage
of an online course (pp. 28-30). Salmon (2001)
argues 'When participants feel “at home” with the
online culture, and reasonably comfortable with
the technology, they move on to contributing' (p.
29). There was little evidence in either the first
or second case study of the online environment
supporting students to feel “at home” and, as
such, there was little online interaction between
students that could be defined as social.
This was in contrast with the environment cre-
ated within the MOO where students learnt how
to be via their initial interactions with teaching
and technical staff, and then through their daily

interactions with each other. They developed the
confidence and capacity to develop an online voice
and a sense of identity. This environment brought
together the elements lacking in the other two
cases. Namely, the teaching and technical staff
modelled the type of behaviour that encouraged
casual, friendly, informal contact, and students
inhabited the space in a way that ensured that it
became a lived space, a place where a student knew
they could go to catch up with another student.
This type of casual, just-in-time type of en-
gagement was important in the development of
SLSN's because it offered students a “place” they
could drop into “without prejudice.” Although
students were required to log into the MOO for
three group conferences, online behaviour outside
of these conferences was not monitored or moder-
ated (Salmon, 2001) by teaching staff at any other
time. As such this meant that in logging into the
MOO they were not publicly committed in their
intent. This is similar to when a student comes
onto campus. They may be intending to go to the
library, they might be going to class, they might
be meeting up with friends, they might be attend-
ing a counselling service or they might not have a
clear intent - they are just coming onto campus as
part of their life as a student. In a sense, the MOO
provided a similar environment to this. Students
could check who was logged on before logging in
and some just logged on and went straight to one
of the study orientated spaces (galleries or seminar
rooms) to complete a task. Others just hung out in
their dorm rooms while others wandered around
the MOO space, exploring student's contributions
to the notice boards or heading off on a virtual
train to explore the MOO's virtual representa-
tion of Tokyo. Regardless, a MOO etiquette was
established that ensured students always greeted
each other on entry to the MOO. Teaching and
technical staff spent a number of hours each day
during the first two weeks of semester in the MOO,
and students quickly recognised they could call
on staff for assistance with technical issues and
questions related to the course. Students devel-