title: The Internet--approaching a ubiquitous tool for dental education.
abstract: The Internet holds promise of addressing some of dentists' and dental students' needs caused by the rapid expansion of knowledge. The Internet is used primarily for communication and for courses, but the quality of Internet courses is uneven. The Internet holds potential in formal dental education for supporting information and instructional databases and as an educational administrative tool. The use of the Internet for educational purposes raises issues such as locating resources on line, ensuring information quality, and incorporation of emerging computer architecture. Some projections are offered for the future: increased instructional quality, replacement of textbooks, creating "courses" out of modules of instructional material, faculty becoming coaches, increased use of trained instructional technologists, intelligent tutoring systems, and the merging of information, instruction, and practice systems. Numerous web sites are given.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Pathology, Radiology and Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City 52242, USA. lynn-johnson@uiowa.edu
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D019992:Databases as Topic; D004497:Education, Dental / Q000639:trends; D004498:Education, Dental, Continuing / Q000639:trends; D020375:Education, Distance / Q000639:trends; D020407:Internet / Q000639:trends; D012984:Software