Donald, Yes, students who have access to the Internet have total empowerment for control of the process and product of their learning, and their own person. The World Wide Web provides the world of knowledge and information to them like it has never before been available in human history. All information needed is avaialble, and much more. Much of it is available free of cost and encumberance of any imposed process or required product. I may be misunderstanding your point, but I believe the benefit of online classes may be that the student gives up some of that 'power' in order to be guided by a process established by a learned expert it the discipline in which the student desires to gain more expertise. By virtue of an online class being constructed, process limitations and activity decisions are necessarily implemented to guide the learner to specific products/accomplishments that delineate progress of learning toward specific course objectives. Dr. S. David Vaillancourt