These environments enable people remote from each other to participate together in a rich variety of real-time learning activities. The students' screens would show the same material worded from their perspective. This hybrid approach facilitates a natural interplay between dialogue and graphic presentation. It permits questions and answers, commentary on slides, and other activities natural to conventional educational interactions.
Libraries let students browse materials, or download copies for local printout.
Private offices let instructors meet with students, create and edit materials for virtual instruction, and store materials securely. A recent experiment at California State University demonstrates this. A sociology professor at California State University at Northridge conducted his own experiment to test online learning, randomly dividing his statistics class in half, and teaching one half by lecture and the other half by Web assignments, online discussion groups and e-mail. These pages remain online solely as historical reference.