Online environments require robust social presence and student to student interaction to be successful.Three dimensions of social presence-social context, online communication, and interactivity-are indicated as key items to foster a sense of community among online learners (Tu & McIsaac,2002). Online learners who are exposed to high levels of interaction and social presence may have higher performance rates than those who do not have such exposure as such environments significantly increases positive perceptions of students regarding online learning (Eom & Ashill,2016) Swan, 2001).

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  Types of Social Media that May be Useful for Courses

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• Blogs with comment functionality to share and discuss information
• Twitter and course hashtags to encourage open forum and debate
• Skype or Google+ Hangouts to engage more deeply with the material and each other
• Google Docs, Wikis and other collaborative document tools to store and refine data
• Project Management Apps to foster and streamline collaboration
• LinkedIn and other social networks to build connection
• YouTube to create both course and student presentations

Here are some more videos that you can use to create a robust social presence environment for your online students.

Also refer to the tools discussed in other pages of this site.

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Twitter                                                                                              CANVAS LIVE Session

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