Course Interaction
Perhaps the most striking difference between the traditional classrooms and distance education courses is in the area of communication and interaction. In the distance education environment, you don't have the benefit of seeing students' nonverbal cues (unless you're using live videoconferencing) to gauge how well you're teaching. The feedback you receive from students' evaluations, telephone calls, and electronic mail messages will assist you in determining your success in getting information across. But for these methods to be really helpful to you, you have to plan for interaction.

Interaction in a distance education environment can be either live (synchronous) or delayed (asynchronous, or not in "real time"). Synchronous interaction takes place with such technologies as online chat rooms and videoconferencing. Asynchronous interaction can be done with bulletin boards, e-mail, and correspondence carried on by mail.

Interaction, in a traditional or distance teaching environment, must be planned and orchestrated. The key, then, to interactivity is thoughtful instructional design that takes into account the teaching objectives, creative teaching methods, and appropriate distance delivery technologies. To learn more about instructional design, check the section on Distance Education Instructional Design.

Here's how Dr. Dave Clark encouraged interaction in his videoconference class through "Interactive extra-credit".  Watch Video See Clark's "Interactive extra-credit" in action (needs video)