Building a knowledge and learning society in Portugal - Adult students in technological schools and higher education institutions

Chapter in Merrill, Barbara (ed.) (2009) Learning to Change? The Role of Identity and Learning Careers in Adult Education. Hamburg: Peter Lang Publishers. URL: http://www.peterlang.com/ index.cfm?vID=58279&vLang=E&vHR=1&vUR=2&vUUR=1

Personal Learning Environments? or Society’s Learning Environment?

Keynote Presentation at PLE2011. What kind of Web have we got? What kind of Web does a Learning Individual need? What kind of Web does a Learning Society need?

From a "Student" to a Lifelong "Consumer" : Constructions of Educability in Adult Students' Narrative Life Histories

The focus of this study was to examine the constructions of the educable subject of the lifelong learning (LLL) narrative in the narrative life histories of adult students at general upper secondary school for adults (GUSSA). In this study lifelong learning has been defined as a cultural narrative on education, “a system of political thinking” that is not internally consistent, but has contradictory themes embedded within it (Billig et al., 1988). As earlier research has shown and this study also confirms, the LLL narrative creates differences between those who are included and those who fall behind and are excluded from the learning society ideal. Educability expresses socially constructed interpretations on who benefit from education and who should be educated and how. The presupposition in this study has been that contradictions between the LLL narrative and the so-called traditional constructions of educability are likely to be constructed as the former relies on the all-inclusive interpretation of educability and the latter on the meritocratic model of educating individuals based on their innate abilities. The school system continues to uphold the institutionalized ethos of educability that ranks students into the categories “bright”, “mediocre”, and “poor” (Räty & Snellman, 1998) on the basis of their abilities, including gender-related differences as well as differences based on social class. Traditional age-related norms also persist, for example general upper secondary education is normatively completed in youth and not in adulthood, and the formal learning context continues to outweigh both non-formal and informal learning. Moreover, in this study the construction of social differences in relation to educability and, thereafter unequal access to education has been examined in relation to age, social class, and gender. The biographical work of the research participants forms a peephole that permits the examination of the dilemmatic nature of the constructions of educability in this study. Formal general upper secondary education in adulthood is situated on the border between the traditional and the LLL narratives on educability: participation in GUSSA inevitably means that one’s ability and competence as a student and learner becomes reassessed through the assessment criteria maintained by schools, whereas according to the principles of LLL everyone is educable; everyone is encouraged to learn throughout their lives regardless of age, social class, or gender. This study is situated in the field of adult education, sociology of education, and social psychological research on educability, having also been informed by feminist studies. Moreover, this study contributes to narrative life history research combining the structural analysis of narratives (Labov & Waletzky, 1997), i.e. mini-stories within life history, with the analysis of the life histories as structural and thematic wholes and the creation of coherence in them; thus, permitting both micro and macro analyses. On accounting for the discontinuity created by participation in general upper secondary school study in adulthood and not normatively in youth, the GUSSA students construct coherence in relation to their ability and competence as students and learners. The seven case studies illuminate the social differences constructed in relation to educability, i.e. social class, gender, age, and the “new category of student and learner”. In the data of this study, i.e. 20 general upper secondary school adult graduates’ narrative life histories primarily generated through interviews, two main coherence patterns of the adult educable subject emerge. The first performance-oriented pattern displays qualities that are closely related to the principles of LLL. Contrary to the principles of lifewide learning, however, the documentation of one’s competence through formal qualifications outweighs non-formal and informal learning in preparation for future change and the competition for further education, professional careers, and higher social positions. The second flexible learning pattern calls into question the status of formal, especially theoretical and academically oriented education; inner development is seen as more important than such external signs of development — grades and certificates. Studying and learning is constructed as a hobby and as a means to a more satisfactory life as opposed to a socially and culturally valued serious occupation leading to further education and career development. Consequently, as a curious, active, and independent learner, this educable but not readily employable subject is pushed into the periphery of lifelong learning. These two coherence patterns of the adult educable subject illuminate who is to be educated and how. The educable and readily employable LLL subject is to participate in formal education in order to achieve qualifications for working life, whereas the educable but not employable subject may utilize lifewide learning for her/his own pleasure. Key words: adult education, general upper secondary school for adults, educability, lifelong learning, narrative life history

Randomized nonlinear component analysis

Copyright © (2014) by the International Machine Learning Society (IMLS) All rights reserved. Classical methods such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) are ubiquitous in statistics. However, these techniques are only able to reveal linear re-lationships in data. Although nonlinear variants of PCA and CCA have been proposed, these are computationally prohibitive in the large scale. In a separate strand of recent research, randomized methods have been proposed to construct features that help reveal nonlinear patterns in data. For basic tasks such as regression or classification, random features exhibit little or no loss in performance, while achieving drastic savings in computational requirements. In this paper we leverage randomness to design scalable new variants of nonlinear PCA and CCA; our ideas extend to key multivariate analysis tools such as spectral clustering or LDA. We demonstrate our algorithms through experiments on real- world data, on which we compare against the state-of-the-art. A simple R implementation of the presented algorithms is provided.

Advertencias preliminares en relación con un plan de acción para la educación inventiva.

Estudio acerca de cómo establecer un plan de acción para la educación incentiva. Se pone de manifiesto que el término educación puede ser atendido como una actividad que prepara al estudiante para introducirse en la comunidad moral de su tiempo y lugar, independientemente de variaciones normativas y culturales. De este modo, cada sociedad puede considerarse como una learning society. Esto es lo que entendemos por socialización en el siglo XX, que ha visto emerger de forma prácticamente universal, sistemas altamente cualificados de comportamiento formal, en política, economía, parentesco, ciencia etc, que requieren una preparación especial. La humanidad se encuentra ahora en la desesperada necesidad de adquirir una nueva capacidad: inventar el futuro. Toda persona debe desarrollar un conjunto nuevo de habilidades y actitudes sobre las que apenas tenemos antecedentes humanos e institucionales. Ante este planteamiento se establecen una serie de interrogantes, y se desarrollan posibles situaciones futuras, como el desarrollo de los ordenadores, la inteligencia electrónica etc..

Servicios para la autoformación en las bibliotecas españolas : un panorama.

La autoformación es uno de los servicios relacionados con la alfabetización informacional que menos se han implantado en las bibliotecas públicas. Factores como la alta tasa de desempleo, el desarrollo de las nuevas tecnologías y la función formativa de las bibliotecas públicas hacen preveer que esta situación evolucionará a una oferta más amplia de servicios de autoformación. Se revisan dos proyectos europeos de este ámbito, el proyecto PLAIL (Bibliotecas Públicas y Estudiantes Adultos Independientes) y el proyecto PuLLS (Public Library in the Learning Society). En el entorno español es el caso de las bibliotecas públicas catalanas donde se observa un cierto rescoldo de servicios de autoprendizaje. Las bibliotecas públicas, dado su papel educador, tienen que proporcionar una infraestructura adecuada que facilite el aprendizaje a lo largo de la vida y apoyo en todos los niveles de educación reglada. Finalmente, se revisa la autoformación en bibliotecas de pequeños municipios.

O Ensino de arquitetura da informação: uma proposta para os cursos de Biblioteconomia da Universidade Federal do Ceará

In the Learning Society, understand the nature of digital information is relevant for librarians, which broadened its performance, it must create, organize, add metadata, and evaluate usability and accessibility to disseminate digital information in environments web. This paper discusses the creation and implementation of the Information Architecture discipline as discipline in courses of Science Librarian of Universidade Federal do Ceará. It is an analysis evidenced from observations in the classroom. The methodology of this study is anchored in the qualitative approach and has a descriptive character. As a result, we present the construction process of the aims of discipline, the menu and the curriculum.

O conhecimento, as redes e a competência em informação (CoInfo) na sociedade contemporânea: uma proposta de articulação conceitual

Article exploratory nature that presents reflection on the information, knowledge and learning society and the social role of information and knowledge about new social structures that culminate in the emergence of the "network society". The concepts of knowledge, networks and the importance of information literacy are highlighted to learn to access and use the information wisely and foster the construction and sharing of knowledge through relationships without restrictions of space and time. It aims to establish a conceptual link between, trying to show the need for better understanding between these areas for innovation and the development of people and organizations in contemporary society.

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