Varis 2005 1

E-learning and Corporate Competence in Higher

Education

Tapio Varis, University of Tampere, Research Centre for Vocational

Educationwww.uta.fi/~titava

Unesco Chair in Global e-Learning

Varis 2005 2

What is knowledge?• From the certainty of Galilei and Newton towards chaos

theory, probability and relativity• Contextuality and complexity, change and uncertainty,

fragmentary and holistic approach• The role of tacit knowledge and art • New industries each needed new concepts and knowledge

to be understood• Knowledge management: Anticipating changes in working

life and in industrial structures• Workplace skills in the 21st Century

Varis 2005 3

Public Private Partnership (PPP)

• Skills crisis from 1750 throughout the 19th century

• Industrial developments required much wider basic literacy and mathematical skills

• Railway communications required to develop a new understanding of time and the behaviour of mechanical machines

Varis 2005 4

Trends of the 21st Century

• -Technology: digitalization (from analog to digital)

• -Globalisation: local to global and global to local

• -New economy: myth or reality• -Corporate competence• -”A Fair Globalization: Creating

opportunities for all” (ILO 2004)

Varis 2005 5

The Mission of the University (GUS)

Varis 2005 6

eLearning Competencies

• What knowledge and skills will enable people to do human resource development work?

• General competencies

• Management competencies

• Distribution method competencies

• Presentation method competencies

Varis 2005 7

Issues for higher education

• The role of network pedagogy in management• E-Learning solutions to support work and business• Changes and challenges:

- intellectual

- pedagogic

- institutional• Life-long learning

Varis 2005 8

Development of Learning Environments

• Information society skills for all

• Skills of educational staff

• Professionals in information and content industries

• Virtual learning environments (e- & m-learning)

• Electronic publication, data banks, etc

Varis 2005 9

• Digital Literacy is "the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers." Paul Gilster Digital Literacy, Paul Gilster, Wiley and Computer Publishing, 1997

• Digital Literacy is a way to think (“thinking skill”)

Varis 2005 10

Digital literacy is key to:

• Learning to learn

• Learning to work

• Facilitating job opportunities

• Providing each citizen with skills and knowledge to live and work

• Providing the confident use of new tools for assessing and using knowledge

Varis 2005 11

Basic questions

• Whose responsibility (society, learner?)

• Temporary telework, virtual family?

• Educational goals?

• Critical thinking skill• Social competence• Multicultural world• Basic values

Varis 2005 12

From Schools to Universities

• Traditional and new literacies

• Strategic fields: active citizenship and enterpreneurship, welfare and security, sustainable development, cultural identity and awareness of cultures, media competence, technology and society

Varis 2005 13

Varis 2005 14