The classroom teacher's comfort and familiarity with computers and software influences student-computer use in the classroom. Teachers remain mired in repetitive introduction of basic software mechanics and rarely progress with students to advanced concepts or complex applications. An Online Assistant (OLA) was developed to accompany the commercial hypermedia software, HyperStudio. This OLA introduced the software and provided a framework for students to storyboard stacks, sequentially introduced software mechanics, and suggested basic principles of good design. The impact of this OLA on the nature of classroom interactions and on the quality of projects produced was investigated. Control group students used the hypermedia software alone and the experimental group used the software with the OLA. Projects employing the OLA were consistently rated higher than those using software alone. Student usage of the OLA significantly reduced teacher interactions dealing with basic software mechanics while significantly increasing interactions dealing with design, stack issues, and content. Student interactions significantly increased for the experimental group in the areas of advanced software issues, design, stack issues, and content. The OLA did not diminish the teacher's role but perceptibly shifted the nature of interactions to those areas requiring higher order cognition, and resulted in better hypermedia projects. (Contains 5 tables.)