“E-learning” as a platform for the future of education in dentistry

Abstract

The use of “e-learning” has greatly expanded in the last decade, with the increase in use of smartphones, the internet, and online forums and websites available to enhance learning. This article highlights the use of these technologies in higher education, healthcare, but more specifically, in the dental profession. To gather this information, a literature review was conducted, using the online databases EMBASE, MEDLINE and PubMed, as well as a search into Google Scholar. This article explores the types of learners, and learning styles, to assess whether “e-learning” caters to these learning styles. It also discusses the future of-learning. The results of the literature search for this article show that e-learning is a varied and flexible source of education, in that it can adopt to all styles of learners, activists, theorists, reflectors, and pragmatists. This pays a large and ever increasing role to the future of education, especially in Dentistry.

Keywords: E-learning, Dentistry, learning theories