Teaching in the Virtual Classroom

Today is day one of teaching the System Architecture Design Strategies course in the virtual classroom environment. I am at the office, connected to the phone and to the WebEx conferencing software, and I am going through the course material, doing demos and being available during the exercises if problems come up. My students are in every time zone across Canada, from Victoria to Halifax.
I have to admit I was very worried about this (and still am), but it’s going pretty well so far. Compared to teaching SADS in the classroom, this way is somewhat easier. There haven’t been any major technical malfunctions. The flip side is it’s lonely. There isn’t a lot of banter, and I’m talking into silence. When I teach in the classroom, there are a bunch of people there and conversations to engage in.
We’ll see how it is by Friday.