As students begin using more virtual and augmented reality tools for education and entertainment, they may come to expect instructors to use similar types of technology in their teaching (Kelly, 2016). Instructors may choose to employ this type of technology in the future, to create more of a real-life feel in the online classroom. The effects of the use of this technology, on online and face-to-face relationships developed between members of the class, would be interesting to study from a communication perspective. Exploring how instructors interweave such technologies into their online classroom could be an important contribution of future instructional communication research. In addition, we need to look specifically at how online "classroom cultures are created and sustained through communication" (Titsworth, 2017, p. 123), acknowledging that this may be different depending on a person's background (Shlossberg & Cunningham, 2016). Recognizing unique student needs and experiences becomes even more important as we have students who deal with issues such as online safety, privacy, cyberbullying, and hate speech. Instructional communication scholars can serve as leaders in discovering how ethics and civil discourse can be coconstructed within online teaching environments, as communication takes place both online and offline as part of learning, making an important contribution to future research and practice within such environments.