By Grandon Gill, University of South Florida
The companion piece to this article, "13 (Educational) Things I'd Rather Do Over the Internet" responded to a recent article in eLearn's sister publication, Communications of the ACM (CACM), that had expressed considerable misgivings regarding the educational value of Internet-based education [6]. The focus of that piece, as suggested by its title, was on identifying ways in which the Internet could be applied to increase educational effectiveness. Unfortunately, this narrow objective meant it could easily be interpreted as an unqualified endorsement of Internet-based education. That was not its intent, however. To the contrary, using the Internet as an educational tool can be really hard—and it is not clear that things will get much easier in the near term. This article identifies five particular things that have particularly vexed my colleagues and me when using the Internet in our undergraduate and graduate classes.
1. Lack of models from our own
2. Constant disruptions precipitated by evolving technologies
3. Explaining our courses to others
4. Adjusting to a new rhythm of life
5. Adjusting to our new
