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Bridging the Technology Divide in the COVID-19 Era: Using Virtual Outreach to Expose Middle and High School Students to Imaging Technology
Published on: September 28, 2022
Plato unmasks hidden limits of tele-education
Frank A Chervenak1, Amos Grünebaum1, Laurence B McCullough1
1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, NY, USA.
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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