Software Design and the Future of theVirtual Classroom®

This paper reviews the software functionality that has evolved over the past two decades of research in Computer Mediated Communications at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) to create a Virtual Classroom® to support distance education. Based upon many years of evaluating its effectiveness we also summarize our views about the software functionality needed for further improvement of this approach to distance education. This view of a future Virtual Classroom® allows the instructor complete control over the learning materials and the tools to easily to weave in the learners as co contributors to a growing web of course knowledge. Beyond the current basic tools of the Virtual Classroom® we discuss the future role for hypertext, gaming and simulation, animation and multimedia and the role of the educator as a facilitator of a collaborative learning process. Both the proper software and the proper pedagogical techniques are necessary in order to obtain maximum effectiveness in the asynchronous computer‐mediated environment