Schoolwork during vacation, and access to the web


It's amazing how much access to the internet is really woven into our daily lives.  For the past 2 weeks I've been away on vacation in Spain.  Before we left home I tried to be proactive, I scanned some of the book chapters that were due for my class while I was away, I got Assignment 1 done before I left, and I downloaded articles onto my Surface Pro so that I had reading material to go through while I was away.  Despite all this planning I still needed the internet because I had ideas which necessitated the use of Google Scholar and other library databases.  The problem?  Some places I stayed had slow internet. In other cases the internet, in addition to slow, was only accessible in a specific corner of the apartment (AirBnB).

Now, I really liked the places we stayed in, but the internet situation impacted my school work. When I had internet I prioritized emailing and Google Docs since those required less bandwidth and I prioritized getting work done (for that hour per day that I had budgeted since it's a busy time in the office) rather than going through Google Scholar.  This experience really gave me a different perspective on distance education.  I knew about these connectivity issues at an intellectual level, but I hadn't experienced them myself.  Now back to 'civilization' for the rest of the trip :-)(a day after the literature review was due... D'oh!)

Note: Cross-posted to my general life blog...

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