A group of students prepares a class presentation on the Middle Ages. One of them demonstrates a sequence of slides about castles that she has assembled. The others chime in with comments, and one suggests some changes in the arrangement of text and imagery on one of the slides. His proposed revisions, sketched in red, stand out clearly on the original. After further discussion he erases a piece of his revision.

A collaboration of this sort might seem commonplace, except that no members of this hypothetical team need to be in the same room. In fact, the entire meeting could take place today over the Internet, using currently available tools. Online conferencing software can support the students' real-time discussion, and an Internet white board can enable group work on the slides.

The software that facilitates such learning opportunities goes by many names: online conferencing, groupware for the web, course environments for distance learning. From the down-and-dirty solution pieced together with email, newsgroups and other familiar (but separate) Internet tools to seamless, comprehensive environments that support collaborative work in diverse media, the range of possibilities continues to expand and diversify. As a distance learning educator, you may be asking...

• When do I need tools like these?
• What are my choices?
• How do I choose?

We'll help you answer these questions about Environments for Online Learning in this issue of Transforming Teaching With Technology:

• In our Cover Story, we'll explore how online course environments and conferencing software operate in distance learning, and examine which features and functions might be appropriate for your project.

• We'll look at several Case Studies of working projects, where we talk with developers and users.

• The Advisor will highlight questions you should ask when determining how to implement a project of your own.

Transforming Teaching with Technology