In the meantime, students are already discovering ways of tagging responses to categorize them by subject, an act that would greatly decrease the amount of time spent wading through online material. As students continue to think up ways to make their online experience more convenient and efficient, they are rapidly appreciating the benefits of an electronic class. More Interaction, Reflection and Fun Virtual classes offer a great deal more than flexibility. They foster a fertile environment for scholarly discourse and often provide the impetus to go further than the course itself demands. In general, students appear to be much more engaged with each other.
Discussions are apt to be livelier, deeper, and more interesting.
Although the amount of contact between individual students has not been tracked, it is possible for students to pursue online contact quite easily. A conversation can be kept private by e-mailing each other directly, or made public by sending it to the listserv. A much richer and more extensive interchange of ideas results. In anticipation of this, Picciano has scanned photographs of campus surroundings onto the Web for his students' amusement and pleasure. He foresees a time when classes will be presented on audio-video media which will allow students to interact with each other as though they were producing an ongoing film, but realizes that interactive video education has a few hurdles to surmount before that time comes.