Dimensions of E-Learning

 

To The Editor:

 

A comment on Badrul H. Khan's "Dimensions of E-Learning " in the January-February, 2002 issue of Educational Technology Magazine:

 

Khan has discussed eight dimensions of e-learning. I remember that Patanjali, an ancient Indian philosopher has presented Ashtanga (eight-fold path) of Yoga in his work " Yoga-Sutra " in Sanskrit language in about 400 A. D. : (1) Yama (restraint),  (2) Niyama (culture),  (3) Asana (posture), (4) Pranayama (breath-control),  (5) Pratyahar (withdrawing the senses from their objects), (6) Dharana (meditation),  (7) Dhyana (concentration), and  (8) Samadhi (trance or deep absorption) (see Rajadhyaksha, 1986, pp. 97-110). The ultimate aim of practicing the eight-fold path of Yoga system is to attain Kaivalya (right knowledge). The similarity based on eight between e-learning and Yoga is thrilling. The present world badly needs Yoga with e-learning, as Toffler, in his "Third Wave", has conceptualized the need of " Gandhi with satellite".

 

One dimension of e-learning is ethical in this article. I think we can extend this dimension as philosophical one. My Department of Education had organized a seminar on  "the philosophical issues of e-learning" for teacher educators of Gujarat in March 2001; I realize this extension on the basis of the experience of that event.

 

Although Khan's article deals with the eight dimensions of e-learning, we can, on its basis, retrospectively concretize eight dimensions of traditional learning also. I really appreciate his visionary contribution.

 

Chandrakant Bhogayata

Department of Education

Bhavnagar University

Bhavnagar-364 002

(Gujarat-India)

(e-mail: bhogad1@sancharnet.in)

 

 

Reference

 

Rajadhyaksha, N. D. (1986). The six systems of Indian philosophy. Delhi: Bharatiya Book Corporation.

 

 

Published in Educational Technology, November-December issue, 2002