First of all, as the Internet is primarily text driven, electronic discourse that students will participate in tend to be lexically and syntactically more complex than oral discourse. Students that are participating in email, discussion groups and the like are going to be using a broader range of English that those who tend to focus mainly on spoken or conversational English. A positive outcome of this balance is the increased reading and writing skills that are developed as a result of using the Internet effectively. Students who are taking the time to respond to email and who offer opinions on discussion group pages are intimately involved in this creative process and are as a result largely driving their own progress. Although electronic, the Internet is entirely related to literacy.
People still interact with it through reading and writing.
These include an improved level of writing skills, a higher awareness or consciousness of the world around them, and active communication. These are certainly excellent points as they cut to the heart of what many instructors are trying to achieve. I once had a college professor tell me that one learns to read by reading. Of course, this is an oversimplification, but none the less it does follow that students who take the time to write generally improve. The idea that using the Internet as a way to achieve a higher awareness is perhaps a strange statement on the surface to make, with all the odd sites and bizarre bits of information on the web.