SOCIAL PRESENCE IN REAL MAURITIAN CLASSROOMS: REFLECTIONS ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF MAURITIUS

The aim of this study is to understand social presence in real classrooms at the University of Mauritius. The trend is to talk of social presence in virtual classrooms but we too often forget that most classes are still run in real classrooms. The University of Mauritius, like many universities in the world, offer most programmes in real classrooms.

Social presence aims to develop communication and enhances the sense of belonging to class. Whiteman, 2002 (in Aragon, 2003, p.60) writes that social presence is a catalyst for motivation parameters like identification with peers, control and development of connectedness. Social presence is about the presence of both students and tutors visible and concrete in an online classroom. But what about real classrooms? Sometimes we can have 60 students in a class and only a half can be ‘present’. Hence this can account for lack of motivation to learn.

Patrick R. Lowenthal emphasizes in “Social Presence” (2009), that definition of social presence is always in a state of re-definition itself, but conclusions about social presence are common despite differences in methodology. Social presence makes students feel they are in a 'real' classroom context. So the second part of the paper will compare social presence in a virtual classroom and in a real classroom. Finally the paper will look into ways how to enhance social presence in real classrooms at the University of Mauritius through an adaptation of techniques used in virtual classrooms.