ConieD is the biannual Congress on Computers in Education, organised by the Spanish Association for the Development of Computers in Education (ADIE). The last Congress, held in Puertollano (Ciudad Real), brought together researchers in different areas, ranging from web applications, educational environments, or Human-Computer Interaction to Artificial Intelligence in Education. The common leitmotiv of the major part of the lectures was the World Wide Web. In particular, the focus was on the real possibilities that this media presents in order to make the access of students to educational resources possible anywhere and anytime. This fact was highlighted in the Conclusions of the Congress following this Preface as the Introduction. From the full 92 papers presented to the Programme Committee we have selected the best 24 papers that we are presenting in this book. The selection of papers was a very difficult process, taking into account that the papers presented in the Congress (60) were all good enough to appear in this book. Only the restrictions of the extension of this book have limited the number of papers to 24. These papers represent the current high-quality contributions of Spanish research groups in Computers in Education. Manuel Ortega Cantero Jose Bravo Rodriguez Editors xiii Introduction ConieD 99 (1st National Congress on Computers in Education) has brought together a very important group of Spanish and Latin American researchers devoted to studying the application and use of computers in education."

The school-to-work transition has been an important topic in the fields of education and sociology research in the past few years. Pre-vocational education, which takes place during lower-secondary school and aims to facilitate the school-to-work transition, is of critical significance in introducing the participants to the world of work and/or in preparing them for entry into further vocational education programs.

With a strong comparative nature, Jun Li presents this systematic investigation of the pre-vocational education in Germany and China and analyzes their curricula of pre-vocational education. By combining the methods of content analysis and teacher interview, the author offers an in-depth perspective into the realms of pre-vocational education and reveals the divergences between the prescribed curriculum and the enacted curriculum. The findings also relate closely to an intensively discussed issue in the sociology of education in the past few years, namely the issue of knowledge and its status, function and forms in the school education today.

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This book seeks to develop the philosophy of Heidegger notion and reflects the growing importance of work based studies which is becoming of special interest to higher education institutions and commercial organisations. The author acknowledges the dominance of the economic discourse of higher education, but in this book he tries to argue that Heidegger offers a phenomenological approach to understanding the diversity to higher education that work based learning can bring. The book offers a structured argument for a phenomenological understanding of both the educational institution and the commercial environment to be considered as workplaces.

Professionals deal with complex problems which require working with the expertise of others, but being able to collaborate resourcefully with others is an additional form of expertise. This book draws on a series of research studies to explain what is involved in the new concept of working relationally across practices. It demonstrates how spending time building common knowledge between different professions aids collaboration. The core concept is relational agency, which can arise between practitioners who work together on a complex task: whether reconfiguring the trajectory of a vulnerable child or developing a piece of computer software. Common knowledge, which captures the motives and values of each profession, is essential for the exercise of relational agency and contributing to and working with the common knowledge of what matters for each profession is a new form of relational expertise. The book is based on a wide body of field research including the author's own. It tackles how to research expert practices using Vygotskian perspectives, and demonstrates how Cultural Historical and Activity Theory approaches contribute to how we understand learning, practices and organisations.

China is experiencing an unprecedented phenomenon: breakneck industrialization on a scale and at a pace not seen before. It is trying to achieve in just a few decades what Western nations took more than a century to do. The arrival in the country's cities of tens of millions of rural dwellers, at most semi-skilled, has put huge strain on the country's system of vocational education, known as TVET. How have the Chinese authorities and their education administrators responded? Is China's TVET system adapting to the rapidly evolving needs of its industry? Using the province of Yunnan as a subject, this detailed case study is a closely argued and sanguine analysis of the operation of TVET in China. The authors deployed a set of internationally comparable criteria to offer a searching assessment of current performance, at the same time documenting areas of strength and weakness. The question the authors' methodology answers is how well China's TVET system is performing compared to technical and vocational education structures in other countries. In fact, they discover that in Yunnan, a province representative of the challenges faced nationwide, much has indeed been done, from a wholesale overhaul of programs to make them relevant to industry requirements, to major investment in infrastructure. Teacher training has been reformed, and take-up of professional master's and doctoral courses has been encouraged. Joint initiatives with bodies such as UNESCO have improved training and vocational education at high school level.

While there is a strong international history of such comparative evaluations, which are essential for policy makers to benchmark their administration, few studies have included China despite the enormous amount of value that can be learned from that country's experience. This work will provide vital material for researchers, governments and development agencies alike.

As the global economy has changed and thus organizations with it, more learning is delivered at and through work and individuals are encouraged to utilise the opportunities that advances in technology have brought to take charge of their own learning. Essential reading for the CIPD Level 7 Advanced postgraduate unit Designing, Delivering and Evaluating Learning and Development Provision, Designing, Delivering and Evaluating L&D critically examines the contextual factors impacting upon these activities in organizations. With case studies from the public, private and voluntary sectors as well as examples of international practice, the book helps to identify some of the challenges L&D professionals face in a range of environments. Designing, Delivering and Evaluating L&D is suitable not just for students working towards a CIPD Level 7 qualification, but also for those studying more general business and management degrees, as well as anyone who may have studied the subject previously and wishes to engage in continuous professional development with regard to this key HR practice. Online supporting resources include an instructor's manual, lecture slides and web links.

As our modem society is so obviously influenced by technology, there is a growing awareness of its importance for education. The interest for including technology as a part of general education curricula is increasing. In many countries technology is an element in the curriculum either as a topic, a project, part of a Science-Technology-Society (STS) programme, part of science education, or as a separate subject. In order to clarify what technology is, there is a need for international discussions in which philosophers, engineers, scientists and educational ists are involved. One of the few conferences with such a broad representation was the second Jerusalem International Science and Technology Education Conference (JISTEC) that was held in Jerusalem, January 8-11, 1996, a conference that can truly be seen as a milestone in the international history of technology education. More than 1,000 technology educators from more than 80 countries of the world and ministers of education from 28 coun tries came together to discuss current issues in technology education during JlSTEC. To cite from Dr. Michael Dyrenfurth's personal overview of the conference in the Journal of Industrial Teacher Education (vol. 33, no. 2, Winter 1996, pp. 83-85): 'Simply put, this conference represented the most stellar international collection of technology education advocates the world has ever seen in one place'. Or in the words of Dr.

There is considerable and growing interest in professionals learning across their working lives. The growth in this interest is likely premised upon the increasing percentage of those who are being employed under the designation as professi- als or para-professional workers in advanced industrial economies. Part of being designated in this way is a requirement to be able to work autonomously and in a relatively self-regulated manner. Of course, many other kinds of employment also demand such behaviours. However, there is particular attention being given to the ongoing development of workers who are seen to make crucial decisions and take actions about health, legal and ?nancial matters. Part of this attention derives from expectations within the community that those who are granted relative autonomy and are often paid handsomely should be current and informed in their decisi- making. Then, like all other workers, professionals are required to maintain their competence in the face of changing requirements for work. Consequently, a volume that seeks to inform how best this ongoing learning can be understood, supported and assisted is most timely and welcomed. This volume seeks to elaborate professional learning through a consideration of the concept of authentic professional learning. What is proposed here is that, in contrast to programmatic approaches towards professional development, the process of continuing professional learning is a personal, complex and diverse process that does not lend itself to easy prescription or the realisation of others' intents.

"Advances in Business Education & Training" is a Book Series to foster advancement in the field of Business Education and Training. It serves as an international forum for scholarly and state-of-the-art research and development into all aspects of Business Education and Training.

This new volume deals with several aspects of the challenge to design learning in and for a changing world. The first part concerns program development. How to build curricula that are future-proof? Principles to innovate our curricula are identified. It answers the question how we can incorporate the need for change in our thinking about curriculum-development and identify the necessary elements to incorporate in our curricula. The second part focuses on the increasing diversity of students and employees within our schools and organizations, in terms of culture, language, and perception of ability, gifts, and talents. This offers a range of opportunities, but at the same time can possibly jeopardize some processes that are taken for granted. Chapters in this part analyze the processes that play a crucial role in dealing with this diversity and identify educational practices that can help to harvest the potential that lies within this diversity. The third part of this book digs further into the possibilities that are opened up by the implementation of ICT-support in our learning environments. E-learning provides tools to adapt these environments to the needs of an increasingly diverse student-population. In the last part we focus specifically on the workplace and how learning can be designed in such a way that employees are equipped for a shifting workplace. On the one hand it is looked how training can affect performance in the workplace. Does learning transfer to the work environment? On the other hand it is questioned how one can design affordances to trigger learning in the workplace.

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Even if in most countries non-university higher education institutions did not have originally a research mandate, it is well known that in most cases these institutions have progressively developed research activities and, at least in some countries, the State now has recognized the research role of these institutions and provided support and funding. Moreover, in many countries the role of research in polytechnics, 'fachhochschulen', 'hogescholen', university colleges, etc is on the political agenda. Despite the importance of the issue, there are very few in-depth studies of research in the non-university sector. These studies show that the development of research in these institutions leads to quite complex interactions with universities, both in the sense of convergence (academic drift) and/or of differentiation of a specific research mandate oriented towards the regional economy. Therefore, this book aims to fill this gap by first analysing a number of transversal issues related to the research mission of these institutions. In its second part it gives an overview of the state of the art in eight European countries.

What is there in developmental relationships beyond setting and striving to achieve goals? The presence of goals in coaching and mentoring programs has gone largely unquestioned, yet evidence is growing that the standard prescription of SMART, challenging goals is not always appropriate - and even potentially dangerous - in the context of a complex and rapidly changing world. Beyond Goals advances standard goal-setting theory by bringing together cutting-edge perspectives from leaders in coaching and mentoring. From psychology to neuroscience, from chaos theory to social network theory, the contributors offer diverse and compelling insights into both the advantages and limitations of goal pursuit. The result is a more nuanced understanding of goals, with the possibility for practitioners to bring greater impact and sophistication to their client engagements. The implications of this reassessment are substantial for all those practicing as coaches and mentors, or managing coaching or mentoring initiatives in organizations.

The rediscovery of the value of apprenticeships has been one of the most significant trends in vocational education in recent years, and has prompted an array of research and development projects in countries around the world. In this volume, the renewed interest in the apprenticeship tradition and the various steps towards the implementation of innovative apprenticeship programmes are analysed and discussed from different perspectives.

Beginning with a number of chapters that describe recent developments in apprenticeship training in different national contexts, the book moves on to analyze the way in which both the quality and profitability of apprenticeship act in concert as the most influential drivers of innovation in this field.

In sum, this book makes an important contribution to the international literature on apprenticeship. It draws together some of the leading researchers in the area, and with its overview of a number of national Vocational Education and Training (VET) projects, provides a body of knowledge on current practices and issues that has previously been lacking in this complex interdisciplinary field. The lessons learned from countries' experiences, as presented in this book, provide a valuable platform for policy-makers and scholars alike.

Preparing professionals to meet the demands of changes in practice is a compelling issue for the development of society, professions and individual professionals. A key tenet of this book is that we currently prepare professionals for the world of work in ways that are generally limited in scope and inadequate for addressing contemporary professional practice. The book critically investigates professional education programmes and the assumptions upon which they are based. It argues for an ontological turn in which professional education attends not only to what students know and can do, but also who they are becoming as professionals. In a scholarly, well-grounded account, the book closely interweaves theory and empirical material on learning to be professionals. It provides a fresh, innovative approach to designing professional education programmes, as well as to research about this important enterprise. This book makes a timely, insightful contribution to debate about educating for the professions.

This is the 2009 volume in the Advances in Business Education & Training Book Series. The Series aims to foster advancement in the field and to serve as an international forum for scholarly and state-of-the-art research and development.

This volume offers challenging thoughts on constructing meaningful learning both within the academy and in collaboration with outside stakeholders. It comprises two major sections: research into business education and best practice in business education. The research contributions explore the incorporation of theoretical frameworks and the exploitation of clicker technology in classroom practice, the integration of reflective writing into work placements to support learning, the exposure of ideas about morally leading change and its impact on leadership aspirations, large group business learning, self-theories, goal orientations and achievement motivations, and Chinese students perceptions of intercultural competence in tutors. Other research contributions look beyond the business school to explore entrepreneurs perceptions of their existing business model. The best practice contributions discuss master thesis supervision, MBA study tours designed to increase global exposure, the use of authentic learning materials in career writing courses, and cross cultural innovations."

The working and career lives of teachers have changed radically over the last two decades. Reforms have turned education into a commodity and pupils into 'consumers'. Yet not since 1992 has there been a comprehensive overview of research findings on teachers' working lives. This anthology plugs the gap by collecting various scholarly contributions and perspectives on teachers' career trajectories and work lives.

The material includes an introduction to previous research within the field, presents a range of contemporary research and offers suggestions as to what lies ahead. Among the contributors are leading educational academics who describe a variety of national contexts, illustrating how problems and challenges relating to the teaching profession manifest themselves and are tackled in different countries.

The anthology also shows just how many aspects of teachers' career trajectories and work lives transcend national boundaries. Common international themes include stronger ties between education and the economy, and a growing importance placed on how students' skills relate to the perceived needs of the labour market. There is also a greater degree of political interference in curriculum goals and processes, and an expanding obsession with evaluation.

In many countries, a whole generation of teachers are reaching retirement age, 'changing the guard' with a crop of new young recruits who are ever harder to attract. At a time when there is an increasing focus on issues such as teacher recruitment, retention and professional development, this anthology offers insight and inspiration to teacher educators and educational policy makers as well as to current and prospective teachers. It also aims at encouraging research into the field of teachers' working lives.

What are the future possibilities for the standing of professional practice as it faces growingly problematic markets for services, complex demands for managerial accountability and control, and problematic circumstances and expectations in its ethical and self-regulative governance? New sources of inspiration may be needed if professionalism is to be either a viable or desirable form for the social organisation of work in the coming years of potentially deep economic and social change. Set in the UK, South Africa, Australia and the USA, the empirical studies included elaborate problematic situations of professional practice concerning issues of identity and knowledge. The theoretical studies explore the notion of generic processes; elaborate the plurality of notions of professional practice; theorise the hybridisation witnessed in inter-professional and cross-disciplinary team work; and outline new theoretical departures relating to these. Elaborating professionalism also raises important methodological issues relating to professionalism as ethical practice. The book offers valuable resources to enrich practice, and provokes thought and new ideas about professionalism.

This open access book discusses the functionality of the use of the language of photography in teachers' initial and ongoing training. It analyzes the nature of photography as a representation system, facilitating inquiry and reflection on its practice for teachers and evocating on theories and beliefs that may guide their work in classrooms. Photography is used to represent symbolically and affectively possible contradictions in teaching activities or the inconsistencies between planned teaching tasks and the educational purposes pursued. Resolving these conflicts is one of the ways to promote professional development. This book also describes photo-elicitation and photographic storytelling as work procedures. By analyzing the contributions of these techniques, the development of teachers is improved.

Within compulsory education, prevocational education is intended primarily to introduce participants to the world of work. This book considers curriculum design and pedagogical practice in pre-vocational education during the last two years of compulsory education. The study focuses on seven European countries (Scotland, Latvia, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Austria, Portugal) and presents an analysis of the curriculum as it relates both to knowledge-based competencies in economics and business and to self- and social competencies. It then discusses the differences between the prescribed and the enacted curriculum as identified by means of a subsequent survey of teachers. The authors conclude with a comparative assessment of each country case study, combined with supranational recommendations.

Creating innovative products and game-changing processes, and adapting to new cultures and communication styles, have all become imperative for business survival. Today s business leaders, from Fortune 500 companies on down, have discovered the value of improvisational theatre techniques to develop creativity and collaboration skills they need.Since publication of its seminal first edition, the principles and techniques pioneered in "Training to Imagine" have been widely adopted by organizations around the world, and have given rise to the field of Applied Improvisation. This new edition builds on the characteristics that made it the most comprehensive and most easy-to-apply resource for using improv in organizations. As before, this book translates the theories and exercises of improv into language that is familiar to business culture, and provides guidelines, case studies and exercises intended for use by individuals for self-development, for small groups, and for facilitation by corporate trainers.This revised edition places more emphasis on the development of leadership, in particular adding activities designed for individuals to develop skills on their own, or outside formal training environments. It builds upon what has been learned since 2001, presenting examples of practice, and research on the methods, that have proven to be most effective in the workplace. Kat Koppett has added a whole new section on instructional design to help users make informed choices in selecting activities to best support their objectives and corporate context, as well as numerous new exercises.This is a vital resource for trainers, executives, and leaders at all levels who want to increase their personal communication and creativity skills, and in inspire and motivate their teams. The enhanced e-book edition will incorporate video of sample activities and exercises, as well as interviews with leading Applied Improv practitioners. This material will also be available free on the Stylus Web site."

This toolkit is designed for preparing health and social care practitioners for their role in facilitating learning in their workplace. It enables readers to recognise learning opportunities, communicate their professional knowledge, provide students with appropriate support, judge performance, co-ordinate student contact with others in the workplace and develop awareness of the needs of students from diverse backgrounds. With plenty of activities and questions, the reader can assess their knowledge base and apply the concepts in the toolkit to their work setting. This new edition is fully updated and now includes: international contexualisation; more coverage on meeting the diverse needs of students; and a new section on meeting professional standards, which discusses the NMC standards as well as those of other disciplines. A new companion website makes valuable supplementary material available - including further activities and articles on managing the placement learning experience, developing new supervisors, and making the most of reflection among others. Practical and easy-to-read, this is an important resource for all those practitioners who support students in the workplace.

This book focuses on relations among subjectivity, work and learning that represent a point of convergence for diverse disciplinary traditions and practices. There are contributions from leading scholars in the field. They provide emerging perspectives that are elaborating the complex relations among subjectivity, work and learning, and circumstances in which they are played out.

Robin and Joan Shohet are pioneers in supervision training for the helping professions. Much more than a manual, this book embodies the heart, soul, spirit and values of their training courses - a golden treasury of insight, wisdom and practical techniques. Its detailed descriptions of their courses apply directly to the work of the helping professions and the therapeutic relationship; what they say apply also to how we all negotiate relationships in our work and our lives. The book opens with the '23 principles' that form the basis of their beliefs about the role and function of supervision. It goes on to describe in detail five of the courses they have been running for some 40 years. These are vivid scripts taken directly from course recordings, bringing to life the interactions, exchanges and relationships played out in the training process. Here we have the Core Course, the Seven-Eyed Model, the Group Supervision Course, the Advanced Course, and the one-day workshop Fear and Love in Supervision. The book ends with a bank of resources drawn from Robin's published writings over the years. These are bold, brave, sometimes raw and always deeply honest accounts of the Shohets' inspirational supervision training - each accompanied by one of Joan's cake recipes.

This book offers a clear, accessible exploration of lifelong learning and educational opportunities for women in higher education. It has been developed from work undertaken by members of the Women in Higher Education Network with chapters organized in three thematic sections: Ambivalent Positions in the Academy, Process and Pedagogy at Work, Career - Identity - Home.

In Sub-Sahara Africa, the sector of informal micro-enterprises (IMEs) is already employing a large share of the labour force in both urban and rural areas. This study reviews the ways in which the owners and workers of IMEs have acquired their vocational and management skills. It reviews the contributions of all the different training providers, including public sector training institutes, private sector training providers, and training centres run by NGOs and other non-profit organizations. The study finds that informal apprenticeship training is by far the most common source of various skills - in some countries it is likely to be responsible for 80-90% of all ongoing training efforts. Informal apprenticeship training presents a number of important advantages. At the same time it has a number of limitations. The study concludes that there is a major challenge to improve the transfer of relevant skills to IME operators, both through pre-employment training and skills upgrading. In view of the scope of the challenge to provide hundreds of thousands IME owners and workers, as well as large numbers of out of school youths with relevant practical and management skills, it suggests to build upon the strengths of the existing practices of informal apprenticeship training and to remedy its weaknesses by involving professional training providers in upgrading its training organization and delivery, quality and efficiency, and final training outcomes. It reviews the results of a number of innovative interventions in different African countries that are working in this direction. Finally, the study suggests that there is an interesting potential in business-embedded training provided by private companies as part of their regular business operations.

The concept of individual responsibility has taken on a signi?cance comparable to that of 'choice' in the global rise of neo-liberalism of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The rise of neo-liberalism is most often analysed through the lenses of theory, governmentality and societal structures. There has been a tendency for an- ysis to become overly abstract with the subjective experiences of the social actors missing dimensions in the literature. This book draws on more than 20 years of international research that has focused on the subjective experiences of people as actors in changing social landscapes. These landscapes are differently positioned politically, economically and socially, in relation to the rise of neo-liberalism. Comparisons enable the differences in people's experiences to be located, explored and explained in relation to different soc- economic landscapes, thus throwing into relief the effects of neo-liberal policies where they are found. My approach is to create an extended dialogue between ideas and evidence, starting close to home, and then extending to speci?c international comparisons and to wider explorations of the central themes of the book: human agency and social responsibility. Finally, I return to social landscapes of Britain, to review the position and potential for social change in societies that exemplify what Sennett has termed 'Anglo-American regimes', in contrast to 'Rhine regimes' as exempli?ed by Germany.