To create more interaction with other peers, Albert wanted to raise a real-time discussion about the term “New
York Yankees”, and therefore needed to find out who was currently on line and available in his virtual learning
community. Through our multimedia discussion system as shown in Figure 10, Albert could search to see if
there were other annotators currently on line? Are the authors of this article currently on line? Are Albert’s
instructor and TA currently on line? Are Albert’s Lab mates, class mates, or friends currently on line? Or simply
are any peers currently on line. Now Albert could form a small discussion group in his virtual learning
community quickly and proceed with a real-time discussion (Figure 11) by using services provided by our group
discussion system. Albert could even leave a post-it note to one of his peers who participated in this discussion
group as shown in Figure 12.