AS TECHNOLOGY BECOMES A MEANS FOR FUTURE EDUCATIONAL DELIVERY, a new view of the instructor's role is developing. Rather than transmit information in person, the instructor will be the facilitator and bridge between the student and the learning source. The instructor must be proficient at both delivery of content and operation of technology (Beaudoin, 1990). This article attempts to identify effective teleconferencing practices for distance education instructors in three different learning sources: Audioconferencing, Videoconferencing, and Computerconferencing. 

The following guidelines developed by the Instructional Communications Systems group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggest that teachers should learn these four major strategies:

• Humanize the creation of an environment by using the students' names, providing pictures of participants, visiting remote sites, and inquiring about personal experiences and opinions during class.
• Ensure that there is a high level of interaction and dialog in an audio class by posing questions, forming group problem-solving activities, encouraging learner presentations, and role-playing exercises.
• Present information that is easy to understand and remember. Provide overviews, use repetition and summaries, vary presentations, and use print materials for detailed information.
• Obtain feedback about the effectiveness of learning and teaching by direct questioning, assignments, quizzes, polls, and questionaires. 

Many guides advise against instructors using their own regular teaching style during video-based instruction. However, effective television instruction requires changes and adaptations from most traditional classroom instructional styles.
Some basic instructional strategies for effective television and videoconferencing are:

• Communicate expectations to the learners prior to instruction. Provide suggestions for optimizing the quality of the session like minimizing background noises and body motions. Prepare students for an active experience.
• Keep motivation high by incorporating a variety of interaction. Assign small group activities and discussions and use a variety of relevant visuals or sounds to illustrate points. Encourage questions.
• Maintain eye contact with the monitor and use the students' names when directing or answering questions.
• Be prepared for technical problems; have a fax, telephone, or e-mail available. 

Techniques that instructors should use for facilitating computer mediated interaction include:

• Read and reply to messages at least daily.
• Establish a positive and helpful tone in replies to messages.
• Avoid dealing with private issues in public messages.
• Send private messages to students who are not active to encourage participation.
• Schedule on-line activities at regular intervals to maintain involvement.
• Encourage student collaboration on projects or assignments.

"The most fundamental point for instructors to grasp about computer-conferencing is that like other forms of teleconferencing, it is primarily suited to inter-learning interactions, such as discussions and collaborative activities, rather than didactic presentations of content." (Moore & Kearsley, 1996)

Beaudoin, M. (1990). The instructor's changing role in distance education. The American Journal of Distance Education, 4 (2), 21-29. 
EET References 
Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (1996). Distance education: A systems view.Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Katie Beedon, Graduate Student