Abstract
The European project METASA (Multimedia European Experimental Towns with a Social-pull Approach) has sought to involve citizens as partners in the development of the information society and to demonstrate telematics applications for specific domains: administration, employment, education/training, health care and leisure/entertainment. After a careful analysis of citizens’ expectations in the four small towns involved, Arnedo (Spain), Parthenay (France), Torgau and Weinstadt (Germany), which was done by a team of social researchers1, education and training not surprisingly appeared as a priority for citizens to get acquainted with the new communication tools and to meet the challenges of the postindustrial society where everyone has to adapt continuously to the requirements of an ever-evolving job market. Because patterns of learning are changing, because adults do not have long time periods available for study, and because they may have problems studying alone using communication tools, training processes are to be customized to their special needs: flexibility in schedules, and adaptability in content. Distance training offers have to be designed to reach learners where they are and when they are available, which means taking into account their time constraints, remedying their media-related cognitive hurdles and, in fact, developing a new continuing school paradigm. To build a just-in-time approach satisfying both employers and learners needs, educational content designers must work in a coordinated manner with employers and training administrators to prepare learners through adequate training so that they can acquire the professional skills and competencies needed for them to apply for and get jobs. Knowledge centres (to accommodate learners’ time constraints) and knowledge exchange networks (to compensate for the asynchronous/synchronous difficulties of communication tools’ use) are two aspects of the new continuing education set up to meet the challenges of the information society.
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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Arnaud, M. (1997). Just-in-time open and distant training offers must match market and learners requirements. In: Berleur, J., Whitehouse, D. (eds) An Ethical Global Information Society. IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35327-2_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35327-2_13
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