An on-line course affords many of the same learning experiences as a traditional classroom setting, along with additional flexibility. Online courses at Edmonds Community College typically use one of two formats.
Students log into a special Web site using an assigned username and password.
These areas are used in much the same way as the Listserv model described above. One added benefit of the TopClass classroom is that students who need to access the class from various locations can do so easily, since the entire classroom exists on a Web site. This could include information such as the class syllabus, lecture information, items that would otherwise appear on a classroom overhead projector, and links to other Internet resources that apply to the course curriculum. An email Listserv is sometimes used as the virtual classroom. A Listserv is an automated service that takes messages sent to a specific email address and distributes them to all members of a particular group.