Virtual classrooms and communities

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Abstract
This paper describes how collaborative technologies, including a corporate intranet, email, videoconferencing, audioconferencing, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), NetMeeting, Virtual Places, WorldsAway, and other Internet-based conferencing tools, can be used to teach classes to geugraphically-dispersed participants. The paper covers the motivation for virtual classrooms, the selection and use of delivery technologies, deployment strategies and issues, participant feedback, and the Virtual University that evolved from the initial distance learning classes. We found that the use of a variety of collaborative technologies accommodated the multiple aspects of communication in the class, providing richer communication than any one technology alone and fostering the sense of community that was important to the success of students in class. The virtual classroom provided an effective and costsaving alternative to face-to-face instmction, allowing us to reach more students in more locations than we would have without distance learning.

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