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Competencies management
Edited by Militiadis Lytras, Miguel-Angel Sicilia and Ambjörn Naeve
Introduction
Diversity is a principal characteristic of all the expressions of life in the modern multicultural society, with the education area unquestionably included: educators and learners of different cultural backgrounds inevitably meet and interact in educational procedures ([14] Freire, 1970; [3] Brookfield, 1986, [2] 1995; [16] Gorski, 2001; [27] Knowles, 1998; [30] Mezirow, 1991; [36] Rogers, 1996; [32] Ndura, 2006).
Additionally, the use of technology-enhanced learning is rapidly increasing and provides education with new potential ([1] Beatty, 2002; [38] Sadler-Smith and Smith, 2004; [47] Ziegahn, 2001, [48] 2005; [19] Hew and Cheung, 2007; [31] Montgomery, 1995; [6] Conceicao, 2006; [42] Smith, 2005).
Today it is evident more than ever that in educational procedure, the single one-size-fits-all approach is dysfunctional and ineffective.
The use of learner modeling to set up the learner's profile and to direct the learning process according to this profile is one of the most current trends ([44] Trandafir and Borozan, 2007, [46] Wilson and Villa, 2002). Personalized e-learning is seen as a key element for next-generation educational programs ([4] Brusilovsky, 2004), aiming to maximize the potential of each learner. More specifically, it offers the vision (and the opportunity) of dynamically composed courses which are tailored to an individual's specific needs, prior knowledge, experience, computing environment, connectivity and communication preferences ([12] Dagger et al. , 2005).
The target profile definition is also critical from an engineering viewpoint. Once a collection of learning needs is available, the process of design starts ([41] Sicilia, 2006).
In this context, the design of a model for personalized training material for adult educators of special groups (AESGs) using technology-enhanced learning is the aim of this paper.
The paper focuses on and analyzes the main elements that synthesize the profile of AESGs, so that these elements may be taken into consideration in the development of learning objects (LOs) addressed to them. Firstly, as the educators are adults, the principles of adults' education must be followed in order to achieve the best educational outcome. Secondly, as educators are going to educate members of a special group, the type and the level of compatibility between educator and learner must be assessed in order to determine the content of the appropriate...