In the readings for this week, I saw very little of the drawbacks of distance education discussed by any of the authors. The closest thing to criticism I recall reading was one of the authors discussing how often times computers are used simply to enhance other forms of media, whether it be an encyclopedia, TV or otherwise. I would like to have seen more balance. In this class, for instance, I think the chatroom discussion we had a few weeks ago was extremely interesting (more freewheeling discussion, open thought), however, I also think that format could be overdone. Chat sort of falls into that "enhancement of another medium" category. The blog is a different sport. It's an animal of its own kind (sorry for all the metaphors). Although it can be seen as an enhancement of our in-class discussions, it also has the ability to expand on the in-class format greatly by using internet links, which are crucial to the bulk of our discussions.