Plato unmasks hidden limits of tele-education
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Frank A. Chervenak
and
Laurence B. McCullough
Abstract
Plato’s powerful metaphor of the Cave, from Republic, further advances a critical assessment of the hidden limits of distance learning. In the Cave, individuals are restrained to see only straight ahead to the images projected from behind them onto the wall in front of them. As in the Cave, in tele-education the dynamism of learning is replaced by passive learning. Not only do learners become largely passive with respect to their teacher, but also to each other. These effects are masked from teacher and learner alike by the technical prowess of distance learning and teaching, a version of Plato’s Cave. Tele-education has at least three undeniably salient features: safety, convenience, and cost savings. Two and a half millennia after Plato gave us the concept of mimesis and the metaphor of the Cave, we can use these philosophical tools to unmask hidden limits of tele-education.
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Research funding: None declared.
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Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.
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Competing interests: Authors state no conflict of interest.
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Informed consent: Not applicable.
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Ethical approval: The local Institutional Review Board deemed the study exempt from review.
References
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