This paper reports experiences from the use of real-time conferencing to support synchronous class interaction in an international online course. Through combination of video, audio, application sharing and chat, the students and instructors engaged in weekly interactions in a virtual classroom. This created an environment for rich interaction, augmenting the traditional use of course repositories. Further, this gave the students hands-on experience with real-time conferencing tools which are increasingly common in the workplace. The paper also discusses experienced challenges related to combining the use of multiple synchronous communication channels and presents implications for further use of real-time conferencing in online courses.