Demolir os muros da fábrica de ensinar

O artigo começa por discutir "cultura escolar" e a necessidade de uma mudança de paradigma educacional. Em seguida, discute a contradição entre o objectivo de educar professores inovadores na utilização de Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação (TIC) e a tentativa de fazer isso sob a influência da cultura tradicional embutida nas paredes e nas rotinas da escola, invocando Seymour Papert, como um dos principais críticos da escola fabril. Finalmente, é avançada uma possível forma de contornar aquela contradição, desde que os formadores de professores estejam conscientes de que ela existe e abordem a formação dos professores segundo uma abordagem construtivista e de acordo com o princípio de isomorfismo, formulado por Gaston Mialaret.

Depleting the curriculum: teaching digital platforms and curricular impoverishment

The paper aims at showing how curricular complexity tends to be depleted by the use of digital platforms based on the SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) standard, which was created with the main purpose of recycling content as it is supposed to be independent both from the context of learning and the supporting technology also deemed to be neutral, all surrounded by a rhetoric of innovation and “pedagogical” innovation. The starting point of the discussion is García Perez’s model of Traditional Didactics as a simple tool to show almost graphically that any ancient didactic model is far richer in terms of complexity than the linearity, in disguise most of the times but still visible under a not so sophisticated critical lens, of the interaction human-(reusable) content that is the basis of the SCORM standard. The paper also addresses some of the more common deliberate mix-ups related to those digital platforms, such as learning and teaching, content and learning object, systems of automatic teaching and learning management systems.

Boundary decisions of the firm: make, buy, cooperate

Firms are not atomistic hierarchies only linked with one another at arm’s-length distance in markets. Instead, a myriad of long-lived, highly cooperative relationships between suppliers and customers are pervasively found in the B2B world. And it is within those enmeshed relationships and networks that the co-evolution of capabilities and business specialisms is brought about and developed. If that is the actual ‘topography’ of the business landscape, then the coordination of economic activities in general, and the boundary decisions of each and every firm in particular, are unlikely to be reduced to a (dual) choice between ‘making’ or ‘buying’. Inter-firm cooperation is in itself a third governance structure, in alternative to the hierarchical and the market modes of coordination. And, what is also equally important to note, it is through the make-or-buy-or-cooperate decisions that the (embedded) firm is able to change its nature and scope, redefine its (fuzzy) boundaries, and thus adapt to an ever-changing business setting.

Anatomy of relationship significance: a critical realist exploration

Markets-as-networks (MAN) theorists contend, at least tacitly, the significance of business relationships to the firm – that is, business relationships contribute somewhat to corporate survival or growth. One does not deny the existence of significant business relationships but sustain, in contrast to the consensus within the MAN theory, that relationship significance should not be a self-evident assumption. For significance cannot be a taken-for-granted property of each and every one of the firm’s business relationships. The authors adopt explicitly a critical realist metatheoretical position in this conceptual paper and claim that relationship significance is an event of the business world, whose causes remain yet largely unidentified. Where the powers and liabilities of business relationships (i.e., relationship functions and dysfunctions) are put to work, inevitably under certain contingencies (namely the surrounding networks and markets), relationship effects ensue for the firm (often benefits in excess of sacrifices, i.e., relationship value) and as a consequence relationship significance is likely to be brought about. In addition, relationship significance can result from the dual impact that business relationships may have on the structure and powers and liabilities of the firm, that is, on corporate nature and scope, respectively.

Markets-as-networks theory: a review

This paper exposes the development of markets-as-networks theory from formal inception in the mid-1970s until 2010 state-of-the-art, en route presenting its historical roots. This largely European-based theory challenges the conventional, dichotomous view of the business world as including firms and markets, arguing for the existence of relational governance structures (the so-called ‘‘interfirm cooperation’’) in addition to hierarchical and transactional ones.

Meta-theories in research: positivism, postmodernism, and critical realism

No scholar or researcher is able to provide robust evidence that counters the scant reflection on metatheory – mostly ontology and epistemology – underlying management studies in general, and industrial marketing and purchasing research in particular. This paper is a contribution to the indispensable discussion of metatheoretical alternatives in research, and most importantly, the strengths and shortcomings thereof, and respective implications on research questions, objectives, and findings.

O currículo domador e as tecnologias selvagens

Segundo uma perspetiva crítica e baseando-se em autores como Papert), Jonassen, Toffler, Robinson, Facer e Christensen, o artigo aborda a incorporação de tecnologias potencialmente transformadoras na escola, tão transformadoras que algumas delas (as TIC, por exemplo) têm tido poder suficiente para operarem mudanças radicais na maneira como vivemos e até como nos representamos, e como essas tecnologias acabam invariavelmente ao serviço do desenvolvimento do currículo, sem que daí advenham mudanças qualitativas importantes, quer para escola, muito menos para o próprio currículo. No caso particular das TIC, o artigo discute também como as propostas inovadoras do seu uso como ferramentas de aprendizagem desvinculadas dos modelos curriculares a priori, one-fits-all, desenvolvidas nomeadamente ao longo dos anos setenta e oitenta do século XX, foram sendo inexoravelmente suplantadas pelo uso de TIC ao serviço da didática e, mais recentemente, como suporte de plataformas digitais de distribuição de conteúdos curriculares.