In flexible, asynchronous e-learning environments, student-tutor interactions are usually by telephone, email or fax. In courses that utilise software in their teaching, many such interactions involve students requesting assistance from a tutor in connection with the use of that software to solve problems. Not only is it difficult for a student to explain a problem which they are having, but it is also difficult to respond to such a query without being able to "walk through" examples by using a white board or via the software which is being used within the course.

There are now tools available that can improve such interactions by recording computer screen activity in some manner. Most tools also allow voice-over narratives to be recorded. This paper gives an overview of these tools, discusses how they can be used to provide better student-tutor dialogues and describes our experiences with a summer school course in which Lotus ScreenCam was used for such dialogues.