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Email and the Internet as a teaching tool: a critical perspective

Now that almost all students have access to the Internet, Email is developing into a useful teaching communication tool. This paper details some of the benefits associated with structuring courses with an Email component and describes some of the pitfalls. In its favor the paper describes how brief lecture summaries encourage students to evaluate non-numerate material and provide the teacher with a quick source of learning feed-back. The ease with which Email text may be corrected and the simplicity of circulating exemplary assignments to all students builds the case for establishing electronic communication as course essential requirement. The simplicity of grading Email assignments and the ease with which mid course assessment information can be distributed is argued to better communication and understanding student and teacher. A novel means of obviating the costly distribution of 'partial hand-outs' is described and a means of connecting students to the wider electronic media is developed. There are technical difficulties such as student access to the Internet and problems with network administration. The adherence to strict deadlines is discouraged to enable students to overcome technical problems. The paper provides some cautionary observations that alert the potential teacher of some of the difficulties associated with excessive dependence on electronic media. The paper concludes by advocating the exploration of Email as a teaching device but warns of the adverse side affects.