The worldwide classroom: Internet collaboration: the other killer app for distance learning.

This summer, New York City technology consultant Erik Tomasi is headed back to school--virtually speaking, that is. The veteran adjunct of the City University of New York's Baruch College is training to become an instructor for the online division of the University of Phoenix, purportedly the world's largest private university, boasting a distance learning program with more than 60,000 students enrolled as of February.

Tomasi is motivated by a passion for teaching that is periodically challenged by a significant business schedule. "I am traveling more for work, but I s