Defining E-Learning

Today when people talk about education, the conversation frequently turns to a new type of education called “e-learning,” as well as to the new breed of entrepreneurial Internet businesses making this kind of education possible. Like most things associated with the Internet, the term
e-learning is subject to much mystification and hype.

To talk about e-learning is really still to be talking about literacy, albeit a new kind – a literate understanding of the ideas of a time characterized by new cultural dynamics: globalization, “the new economy,” and the web. It is also to talk about a new form of social interaction.

E-Learning is a means of becoming literate, involving new mechanisms for communication: computer networks, multimedia, content portals, search engines, electronic libraries, digital content architectures, and web-enabled classrooms. E-learning is characterized by speed, technological transformation and mediated human interactions.