One of the Cons of online learning has to be how information can easily be misinterpreted. For instance, in one of my classes in University our group was corresponding to each other via the First Class Network (very similar to WebCT). A lady in our group capitalized every word in her messages. In the social edict of the computer world, capitalizing words is used to show anger. This lady did not know that rule. There was a situation where she replied to someone’s post, and her message was misinterpreted.
There are many other form of misinterpretation in the online world. Although initialisms do not apply to the classroom setting, they do exist and continues to grow in the online world. According to Wikipedia, the list of initialisms "grows by the month and they are collected along with emoticons and smileys into folk dictionaries which are circulated informally amongst users of Usenet, IRC, , and other forms of (textual) computer-mediated communication.”
I am not a user of initialisms, however in the odd e-mail I do receive at last one or two of them and am left to ponder what they mean.
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