Two or three letters a month isn't exactly using.
I never actually expected my students to become heavy internet users, though I did figure that if 15% could take the course without having a computer, then another 15% could actually get caught up in the technology and really start to make good use of it. Happily this seems to be the case - each year about two or three students from classes of between 15 to 20 students caught the bug and, judging from the e-mails they've continued to send me have integrated internet use into their daily lives in a positive, and intensive, manner.
But defining what actually making use of this technology means is rather subjective. For me, someone who ploddingly hunts and pecks out an e-mail address on his or her keyboard because he or she hasn't learned how to build an address book isn't really using e-mail, or at least using it as a tool that can actually serve a positive purpose in his or her life. When people have to open a new Hotmail account three times over a period of four months because they've forgotten their password (or even their user name, and yes, it's happened) it's clear that we're not talking about successfully completing the course.
We expect that driving becomes more or less second nature - we switch gears ... automatically (if we still have a car with a "standard" transmission), meaning that we don't have to think twice about what we're about to do. We should expect the same with internet use: an experienced user shouldn't have to scratch his or her head and ask him or herself what to do next when bookmarking a page or preparing an e-letter. Sadly, this doesn't seem often enough to be the case.
Go to: I didn't really intend to use it!, or
Go to: You mean you teach this stuff?