Searching, Lurking, and the Zone of Proximal Development. E-Learning in Small and Medium Enterprises in Europe

Autoren
Attwell, Graham (Hrsg.)
Erscheinungsjahr
2007
Zusammenfassung
This edited book contains a summary of papers produced in a EU education project. Over the past few years, there has been increasing interest in the potential uses of Information and Communication technologies for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises. This focus stems from the realisation of the importance of SMEs in sustainable economic development and in the development of regional economies. At the same time, the increasing importance of information and knowledge in the production process and in stimulating innovation has pointed to the importance of continuing education and learning for SMEs. However, most research and surveys have shown that SMEs have only a limited capacity and participation in continuing education and training The ICT&SMEs project was a 3-year project funded under the European Commission Leonardo da Vinci programme to investigate uptake and practices with respect to technology-enhanced learning in SMEs. Certainly, we were surprised by what we found. Firstly, we were somewhat taken aback by the lack of previous work in this area. Considering the policy emphasis on SMEs, especially as a future growth area in the economy and a provider of employment, and the importance placed on learning and competence development for innovation and competition, there seems to have been few empirical studies on the learning that takes place in SMEs. We also learnt that despite may initiatives and projects seeking to promote formal e-learning courses for SME employees, there seemed to be little take up and indeed only a limited awareness by managers of the potential of e-learning. In contrast, we found that many SME employees were using the internet for accessing information, solving problems, and taking part in on-line discussions as part of their everyday work.
Verlag
Vienna, Austria: navreme|publications
Seiten
184
ISBN
9789989500527
Weitere Angaben
The authors are scientists from several European countries: Austria, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and UK. The editor, Graham Attwell is Director of the Welsh independent research institute, Pontydysgu and a founder of the north Wales software research and development company, the Knownet. A former director for research in Gwent Tertiary College, he then worked as a senior Researcher at the University of Bremen in Germany. He has been responsible for the management and undertaking of a wide range of European and national research projects for private, regional, national and European organisations and sponsors. He has worked for both Cedefop and the European Commission on research and evaluation projects. He is a specialist in the areas of continuing professional development for teachers and trainers, e-learning in education and SMEs and the use of ICT technologies for collaborative knowledge development. He is presently involved in developing software to support evaluation and knowledge sharing and author of a considerable number of books, papers and journal articles. Amongst these are the Monitoring Report of the Leonardo da Vinci ICT projects, e-learning in Europe: Results and Recommendations, published in 2003 and the Cedefop study The challenge of learning in small enterprises, also published in 2003.
Artikel in diesem Sammelband
scroll-top