Portugal: manifest for the republic education or teacher education under scrutiny

Starting from the analysis of a Manifest placed in the World Wide Web in order to gather signatures, the paper discusses the arousal of a wide spread movement of scepticism in the so called Portuguese “civil socie ty” against the overall result of almost forty years of uninterrupted educational reform that has taken place in Portugal since the late sixties and has lead to an increasing percentage of illiteracy and innumeracy. That Manifest is presented as part of a broader movement, deeply rooted in the Portuguese society, and silent so far, which is becoming stronger and has now strength enough to be part of the political agenda. It is also our concern to unveil an emerging trend of blaming sciences of education and badly trained teachers as responsible for the poor outcome of our schooling system.

Cozinha da Madeira website: the online touchpoint for a sustainability oriented service of Madeira Island

Over the past several years technology has been evolving in a way that it has become crucial for most businesses and companies to have interactive technology enabled touchpoints available online. Such interactive touchpoints can be developed as mobile application, webpages, or even through social networks. In the end such touchpoints will most surely represent the most easily reachable and marketable side of the business. Today selling a product alone is no longer enough to make consumers satisfied and complete, businesses and business models are changing. Increasingly, companies are choosing to not just sell products but to combine both sale and service. These service-based approaches will provide the client with a unique and personalized experience of what the company is selling. By selling a service the company transmits values that are more complex than the simple selling of a product. A service is something immaterial, happens over time and exists in the moment of the delivery. When conceiving and designing services, the use of the new technologies becomes a crucial step in order to craft touchpoints that facilitate the whole experience cycle of the service, from attracting, orienting, interacting and retaining the client, as well as providing later support to the consumer to advocate for the service itself. This thesis reports on the design and implementation of the online touchpoint of Cozinha da Madeira, which is a service designed to support tourism, specifically promoting the discovery of tradition and landscapes in the island of Madeira. Such touchpoint developed in the form of a website, embodies completely or partially various stages of the Service Experience cycle, from attracting and connecting, orienting, interacting as well as retaining and advocating. Through this thesis we will describe the design and implementation of such touchpoint as well as the evaluation and possible future implications.