This article explores digital learner presence in various higher education degrees in a regional institution in NSW, Australia. Several tools used for online teaching are explored through individual research projects in relation to the learner's presence with the tool being used. It was found that a variety of online teaching tools provided student presence and were effective for learning. Blogs, discussion boards, wikis and 3D virtual worlds were used to engage students in their learning. Herewith, the authors point out those that are more successful than others.

Produced through market relations of neoliberal managerialism, teacher subjectivities are becoming progressively commodified. With the increasing casualisation of the teaching workforce, the wellbeing and status of casual relief teachers (CRT) can be seen as an area of concern, at risk of "flexploitation" (Bourdieu 1998, p. 85). More than just a convenient labour pool, CRTs operate on the margins of school communities, a space fraught with a range of issues. In many instances CRTs experience less job satisfaction, less rapport with students and colleagues and less access to school information, professional development, resources and teaching materials. This article draws on a positioning theory to frame the discursive production of casual relief teacher (CRT) selves within the neoliberal milieu. It offers an analysis of collective biographies that explore narrative formations of casual teaching. Schooling discourse is replete with metaphorical language that frame teacher positioning and a range of existing metaphors in CRT literature highlight their vulnerability in particular. Rather than offering an analysis that addresses casual teacher performance as a problem to be solved, this article proposes that the relationship between 'structural marginalisation and the 'othering' that CRTs can experience is associated with the politics of market-related performativity.

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This research study surveyed 100 undergraduate teacher education students in a regional university in Australia, explored selfreported perceptions of their knowledge about students with exceptional needs, and their competence to be effective educators of these students in an inclusive classroom. Additionally, we included a measure of general attitude toward teaching in an inclusive classroom. What made this exploratory study atypical was broadening the concept of 'exceptionality' to the inclusion of items related to students with physical and cognitive challenges, superior academic gifts and those deemed to be twice exceptional. The results were unexpected in that teachers' age, parental status and exposure to units of study in special and inclusive education did not differentiate their knowledge, perceived competence, or general attitude.