Post-knowledge Economy and Lifelong Language Learning: New Agendas and Issues

Despite being a late twentieth century concept, LLL is continuing to attract the attention of scholars, policymakers and practitioners. LLL principles, strategies and practices, while remaining inviolable in their foundations, require research to continually revisit them in relation to current trends, for example, the post-globalising world;the post-knowledge society;the digital economy and digitalisation of all spheres of human life, including education;the coronavirus pandemic and the possibility of increased ‘hybrid' forms of learning. In response to these developments, the chapter poses and addresses a number of problems related to the future positioning of LLL as a contributor to new forms of human capital development required to respond to the above challenges. The chapter pays special attention to LLL as an educational open continuum concerned with socio-, inter-, and poly-cultural personality development at the level of informal language education and how it prepares students to respond to potential changes in their future professional careers, while also raising issues about the commercial role of language proficiency and the commodification of language as a factor of success in the professional and social spheres of human life. Finally, the chapter discusses the permanent development parameters of student communicative individuality and identifies the characteristics of the life spheres in which people can realize their personal potential through continuous language improving. By blending conceptual and practical issues, the chapter offers a new strategic and practical perspective on LLL implementation. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Public Policies to solve the differential access to digital technologies and connectivity in Argentina

In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic manifested our heightened dependency on digital technologies for the operational functioning of all aspects of our lives under lockdowns: access to information, jobs, education, good governance, entertaining, and social and family relations. However, in Argentina, as in all Latin American and Caribbean countries, the pandemic has revealed the many inequalities that affect its population. It is important to recognize the present digital divide, considering the existence of multiple gaps: socio-digital, cognitive, socioeconomic, socio-spatial, gender, linguistic, among others. This paper is focused on the new needs faced to the construction of Knowledge Society in Argentina through the study of its public policies for digital inclusion. It proposes measures to be included in the country`s public policies for Knowledge Society.

Training Delivery Methods Implemented by American Companies: Opportunities and Challenges in Context of Knowledge Society

The radical transformations caused by the rapid development of information and communication technologies in the mid-1990s prompted the transition to the knowledge society which identified the key role of knowledge as the most important and valuable capital of organizations and had a decisive impact on the development of corporate training. In our study, we aimed to analyze the training methods used in American companies in the knowledge society, particularly, their feasibility, features, benefits and possible limitations. The results of our study show that, at present, e-learning is considerably more widely used in American companies than instructor-led classroom training. Most organizations use blended learning which implies the combination of e-learning methods and instructor-led learning methods. A powerful stimulus for the wide implementation of e-learning methods was produced by the COVID-19 pandemic when the use of educational technologies made it possible for the companies not only to continue training and development of their employees but also to implement tactical and strategic practices which will have long-term implications for the future of the training industry. The most widely used e-learning methods in American companies are virtual classroom/webcast, online or computer-based methods, social learning, augmented reality, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. In spite of certain limitations of e-learning methods, they have a number of important benefits which allow companies to expand access to training, save costs, increase adaptability and flexibility of learning programs, etc., and thus satisfy their needs in qualified employees.

Students perceptions about the use of Studium as a tool for implementing Blended Learning

Advances in the Knowledge Society and the evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have led to great advances in different spheres of action. Regarding the academic, ICTs have enabled important transformations in teaching and learning processes. In the academic year 2021-22, two years after of the beginning of the COVID pandemic, the Spanish Ministry of Universities, and the Crue Spanish Universities, agree to carry out the safe face-to-face format that implies the implementation of blended learning or b-learning or hybrid learning. This article describes the perceptions about the use of Studium as a blended learning tool that 143 Spanish University students. An adapted version of the last section of the Innovative Methodology Assessment instrument by García et al. (2008) is used, which is designed through Google Forms. The results show that the students consider that the use of Studium in the subject has facilitated the acquisition of new knowledge, while it has allowed them to be more autonomous and responsible for their learning and work in an appropriate way. In addition, they state that they feel comfortable with such use. And they also state that it is very likely that, in other countries, they are using said web tool. Despite all the above, they also affirm that the use of this tool in the teaching and learning processes requires a lot of time, and that, in a certain way, it makes it difficult to acquire teamwork skills. Considering these results, the academic implications of using the institutional Moodle, Studium, in the teaching and learning processes of Higher Education to implement the new approach, blended learning, considering gender and the degree. © 2022 IEEE.

Reflexivity on Delivering Experiential Learning Before and Since Coronavirus Pandemic

To address challenges in an age of knowledge society and better prepare students for uncertainties, higher education has integrated experiential learning into curricula. One of the approaches is to expose students’ learning to various physical contexts. Since coronavirus pandemic, such approach has become puzzling. With a view of balancing health consideration and learning needs, experiential learning has to be delivered with synchronous learning tools like Microsoft Teams. The delivery, under whenever circumstances, has posted various challenges to educationists including ethical, pedagogical and technical considerations. Based on author’s experiences, therefore, this article aims at offering an autoethnographic and reflexive account on delivering experiential learning at higher education in Hong Kong before and since the pandemic. Through arguing that delivery of experiential learning has to be in line with social expectations and students’ needs under new learning environment, this article will be an important reference for educationists and education policy makers. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Collective intelligence and web tools in the educational process

The knowledge society has managed to address one of the biggest changes, in the last two years, which has had a total and partial confinement, of this issue that afflicts humanity, the health emergency caused by the COVID-19. The world could not be paralyzed in all scenarios, for this reason, it was necessary to act and get to incorporate information and communication technologies (ICT) into daily activities. The educational context was one which incorporates and uses of ICT is most reflected, which had to make a stop along the way, to think of how it would be implemented communication strategies to interact with students and be able to continue with education at home. In this way, ICTs began to be more relevant through Web tools and, to be incorporated, used, and adapted to keep the educational process active. In this way, individual work was also privileged, and even more collaborative one allowing Collective Intelligences to be empowered in education, by developing favorable spaces to home learning. This research project addressed the research question "How to promote the development of Collective Intelligence supported by web tools?"where the intervention and relevance of the web tools were understood in depth, as well as their incorporation, use, adaptation, and contribution to the development of the educational processes;whereas teachers, students and now family, they have played an active role facing this health emergency caused by COVID-19. The interactions and reflections made around these tools, allow to strengthen the competences, the collaborative and cooperative learning, which increases the group work team. One of the purposes was to interact with Web tools to strengthen the development of Collective Intelligences, the educational process conceived in a decentralized context allows to generate a technological transformation in education. This has allowed teachers, students, and parents to act in collective environments, in this sense, the expanded open classroom education that works collectively has taken a considerable enough of strength, where everyone acts, reflects and participates in active roles. The research was worked with the methodological approach of qualitative type, which allowed to know about the reality that surrounds the educational process, by observing to describe and explain the attitudes and academic developments of students in situations identified in a theoretical-practical context. One of the results was the interaction and the way who works emotional intelligence was addressed, when students and teachers are working as a team, in developing Collective Intelligences. The project has been advanced, thanks to the observation as an instrument that has made it possible to demonstrate the applicability of web tools to strengthen the development of Collective Intelligences in the educational process. © 2021 ACM.