Welcome to the first SBOSE podcast of Unit 3: Reaching the online learner. This podcast explores issues around online social presence in both informal and formal settings. We’ll discuss the way that making students feel comfortable and part of a community online impacts significantly on the learning experience, retention rates and satisfaction overall – but they don’t necessarily want us as friends on Facebook! How sociable can you actually be…?

So, listen out this week for strategies that tutors can adopt to combat online isolation and hear how the equivalence of experience ties in with social presence at an institutional level. There’s a great example of a podcast by Mary Ann Kennedy on her Coffeehouse Project, which exemplifies online social presence.

Allow this podcast to just start the process of thinking and reflecting on your own experience as an online learner and then let the unit readings and the student-led seminars take you much, much further in your knowledge and understanding of this fascinating area.