A UNIVERSITY TOWARD THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY Author: Louiza AN, Director of International Relations, Former Dean of the School of Business Administration and Information, Colombian J.I.C. Polytechnic. Coauthor and translator: Luis Guillermo RESTREPO RIVAS, Rearcher and teacher.
Summary
It is a truism that we are quickly entering the so-called "information society". To respond to the dynamics and challenges of this society, it is necessary to redirect and focus the learning model at the post-cundary education. We prent here the results of a proposal of a new learning model that we have developed at the Informatics Engineering program of the Colombian Jaime Isaza Cadavid Polytechnic.
Introduction
We could shortly characterize the "knowledge society" like that one where, to the traditional wealth-producing factors, namely: Work, capital, and land, the "knowledge" factor is added1 with always increasing comparative importance.
We arrive to such a society thanks to an interesting feedback phenomenon, by which the advances in k
nowledge facilitate some technological developments2 which in turn allows efficient information and knowledge handling. So, a lf-sustained cycle ensues which brings the production of new knowledge.
If we, from our position as educators, reflect on this type of knowledge society, which is already a reality at least in a significant part of the world, we find out that the educational models and practices in our country are not adequate to prepare the current and future generations for such a society. In our educational system there is excessive slackness and lack of focusing in order to guide the students to be active participants of that new society, to which they must productively contribute from their particular vision. However, precily in such a society, information and technology are becoming a species of transnational commodities, so that spite of the fact that much social inequalities subsist, knowledge quits being a privilege of a few3 in order to be accessible -and really necessary- for everyone who is willing to acquire it and devotes with zeal to this pursuit. This last obrvation enables us to e the situation as an opportunity -and perhaps the last one that we will have- for the Colombian society to jump in its development and inrt itlf in the worldwide development, provided that we tailor our educational system
1 Drucker, P.: Managing for the Future
2 Specially information and communication technologies (ICT)
3 From the perspective of the history of human societies.
with aims to this new society. Then it is necessary carry out a transformation in education, and particularly in its medium, technological and professional levels.
The new stage
Acknowledged historians and development analysts agree on the fact that we are leaving from a time who economy was mainly determined by agricultural and manufacturing activities, now known as "industrial economy era", and that ending the twenty century and beginning the current one, there are important changes in the socioeconomic landscape, brought by simultaneous and interlinked factors like the following:
•The power and worldwide diffusion of information and communication (IC) technologies, markedly manifested in the interconnection and integration by nets like the Internet and the business intranets and extranets.
•Knowledge Management, defined as "the leveraging of the collective wisdom, in order to increa t
he organizational responsiveness and innovation capacity"4. For each organization it is of vital importance to find the best form to generate, communicate and apply knowledge, taking maximum advantage of its "intellectual asts."山药红枣
•The increasing comparative importance, for all the economical activities, of the rvice ctor and of the labor force dedicated to it5.
•Market changes: Now the clients not only demand a more immediate respon, but they are also better informed, they have more power6, and they should be converted in technological partners of the companies, involving them from product conception in the production process7.
•The speedy innovation, as a requirement for competitiveness facing the market requirements.
•The redefining of the middleman role: As a conquence of the capacities that computers and communication gives to producers and consumers, the middlemen must provide an added value which is valid in the new circumstances, or el disappears.
•The virtualization: The emergence of innumerable "virtual communities," with partners geographically scattered but united by common interests, reaping the benefits of the IC technologies
in order to carry out effective and efficient interactions, in spite of distances and geographical dispersion: virtual teams, virtual government8, virtual employment, virtual corporations, virtual education,....
•The importance of developing international-class competitiveness in an increasingly interconnected world (the true coming of the "Global Village").
4 Koulopoulos, T.M. and Frappaolo, C.:Knowledge Management
5 Quinn, J.B.: Intelligent Enterpri, p. 4.
广西自驾游6 Naisbitt, J. y Aburdene, A.: Megatrends 2000,
7 Quinn, J.B.: Intelligent Enterpri, p. 178, and Tapscott, D.: The Digital Economy
8 Tapscott, D.: The Digital Economy
•The technological and ctorial convergences: As the among computing, telecommunications, consumer electronics, media and entertainment industries, and among computer science, biotechnology and nanotechnology. This is one of the reasons which compels the companies to “reconceptualize the industries with which they compete"9.
•The generalized digitalization of all types of information: Upon recasting any information into a "common language", no matter their origin (text, images, sounds, etc.), one can manipulate information and knowledge in ways that were unthinkable some decades ago.
The concomitant factors justify then that we speak of a "new economy"10, which compared with that of the industrial era, does require, among other things: Life-long
work-teams instead of the split learning instead of a more or less static knowledge,
孕期缺铁between labor and management, the acceptance of calculated risk instead of assuming curity, a state of competition instead of monopolies, the coming into play of intelligence instead of the curity that gave the posssion of an industrial plant, and to give the clients a customized election instead of assuming that they will accept a standard product.
The university for the new stage:
数学四年级上册
The improvement of the formal educational systems has been a decisive factor for the upswing in the competitive capacity of the countries, their economic growth and their social development in general11. Then, and now more than never before in order to compete in the just sketched socioeco
nomic stage, it is necessary that the university refurbish their utopias and pedagogical models, as the formative institution of the intellectual capital, having therefore a major social function.
Given the characteristics of the new circumstances, the academic programs in the area of computer and information sciences are specially required to be enhanced to fulfill a key social function, since they could offer us a precious opportunity in order to achieve a jump in the country development, toward a society where each citizen has an equitable access to the knowledge and to better options and opportunities.
We should move away from a reactive university toward a proactive one. From an university that responds -often belatedly- to its milieu, toward one which points out the future. The university could not remain passive in front of the state of things in the society, but it must play an active role in social transformations. It should clarify the desirable future of the society in which it exists. "It should be the head in quest of continual improvement, being futurist and not only the trainer of new professionals"12.
9 Quinn, J.B.: Intelligent Enterpri, p. 23.
10 The document “Connectivity Agenda” [Colombian Ministry of Communication et al. 2000], defines
the New Economy as that “bad in the interacction of las information technologies and the traditional economy”
11 Llinás, R.: El Reto: Educación, Ciencia y Tecnología, p. 9.
12 Monterrosa, A.: Docencia Universitaria: Reflexiones, p. 71.
We should move away from an isolated university toward one linked with their socioeconomic surroundings. In particular, we should design and implant new mechanisms of relationship between the university and the business ctor, gradually covering all the possible cooperation levels13: Offering laboratory and consulting rvices to the productive ctor, internships from a ctor in the other, joint R&D projects, up to lasting cooperative efforts of greater economic span (i.e.: gestation of joint R&D centers14). A proposal we are developing in this n is the project named "Entrepreneurial Talents for the New Economy" which we will deal with later on. Also, we should move away from a university with traditional models, toward one guided by new models, like "learning to learn", innovation and rearch, problem-bad learning and "learning by doing". Toward this vision of education are guided the pedagogical changes that we have carried out in the informatics engineering program, upon structuring it around a ries of workshops, as a species of backbone that gives to the curriculum a ba on creative thinking and problem solution.
In order to achieve the transformations it is necessary that professors and students change their attitude about learning. If the students are not convinced of the citizen roles they have, and about the significance of the effort they should make in order prepare themlves, and aren´t committed with their own learning to improve their academic level, and if the professors don´t bring up to date their knowledge and aren’t convinced that they should commit themlves with the social function of their work, no transformation will be possible.
The workshops
With the workshops quence along the engineering program, we are aiming to the "learning by doing" principle, where the subjects of study support the objects of work to which the student applies immediately the acquired knowledge. This strategy is amless tied to the "learning to learn" principle, trying to nsitize the students in order to wake up their motivation about rearch and innovation, as well as their lf-confidence, upon realizing that they are capable of carrying out projects, work in a team and get concrete, tangible, results.
The workshops quence was designed bad on solid pedagogical criteria, aiming to give them up-to-date contents put into context, as well as coherence, continuity and a logical development. Each
workshop lasts a mester and is supported by the others cours like mathematics, physics, humanities, social and managerial subjects, as well as other technical themes of computer science. The quence is the following:•Creativity and inventiveness workshop.
13 Campo, A.: Ciencia Tecnología, Educación Superior, Gerencia Ambiental e Integración: Reflexione s.
14 Colciencias: Nuevas Tecnologías para la Modernización, p. 20.
•Workshop on foundations of logic for computer science, centered in the concepts and principles that allow one to conceive solutions bad on models and algorithms, with the prevailing focus in object-orientation and software reusability.
•Workshop on information structures, concerned with data structures and files, and their algorithmic handling.专业知识技能
•Workshop on databas, from the traditional topics of models, DBMS, and SQL, up to the modern concepts of datawarehousing.
•Workshop on information systems design, which deals with the features of the software product, fro
m their conception, design and development up to the real-world issues of implementation and life-cycle.
•Workshop on hardware architectures.
•Workshop on telecommunication networks.
•Workshop on software-projects management.
•Advanced workshop, with variable content according to the topics of current relevance.
Recognizing the necessity of continuous learning, the workshops philosophy tries to era barriers between the workshops and other learning ambiences like lf-study, other elements of the so-called "hidden curriculum" and the real life. Specifically, we have established some incentives in order to reward other projects developed by students related to workshops themes, but carried out independently and not as responsibility of the workshops proper.
Analyzing an experience
The creativity and inventiveness workshop is particularly important and interesting, not only becau
of their theme, but by being the first for the students, a trait which gives this workshop a key role in the shaping of attitudes concerning: rearch, pragmatic issues and teamwork, attitudes that will rve the students for the following workshops along their study.
It is an interdisciplinary, pedagogical and innovative workshop, aiming to the development of inventiveness and skills for rearch and innovation. We conceived it like a prototype of the new school of learning, problem-bad learning and learning-by-doing, that becomes a nurry for young rearchers.
The interdisciplinary feature of this workshop is evidenced in the fact that the great majority of projects carried out within it involves al least mechanical, electronic and computer elements and their application domains span very diver fields.
The focus on problem-bad learning is motivated by the reflection that the real problems crop up in the society, in the life outside of the academic cloisters, and therefore we consider that a fundamental function of education is to prepare the student in order to face and solve real-life problems.
Given the importance of this workshop, we had begun with it in order to perfect the workshops meth
简历免费
odology, so we now have a more complete analysis of it, which allows us to profit from the experience.
Antecedents
Under the direction of the Dean, with participation of the Area Coordinator of the informatics branch, for this shop we relied on a valuable team compod of a coordinator, professor-advisors and lecturers, all of them having experience from past mesters and great interest in collaborating.
The successful experience with this workshop during veral mesters has originated institutional support, good repute among the students of the following mesters -which had already participated-, as well as a favorable expectation among new students.
At the beginning we perceived some weakness we must address, as: inadequate initial comprehension and appropriation of the workshop, as well as the scanty zeal, academic level, lf-discipline and liking for study of the new students coming from high school. Strategies to convert weakness into strength
In order to face the difficulties and perfect the creativity workshop, we have applied veral strategies, from which we highlight the following:遇见你真好作文800字
•To improve the comprehension of the workshop among the students. To this end we deliver the students written information on informatics engineering, and on the objectives, norms and procedures of the workshop, as well as on the forms of asssments and their dates.
•To improve the integration and synergy among the workshop and the others cours of the first mester. To this end we carried out meetings with all involved instructors, in order to coordinate actions and share information.
•To improve the initial preparation of the students. The first week we carried out an evaluation of the students in order to classify them in groups and apply leveling strategies in veral subject matters.
•To improve the monitoring and continuity of the workshop: Producing written information, records of experience and guides that will help the future workshop development.
梦幻手游转金
It is esntial that, from this initial pha in the formation of the students, we do utilize the adequate means in the university in order to achieve that the students take care of their own learning process, that they understand that they are the true accountable builders of their knowledge.
In the workshops, and especially in this one on creativity, we aim to create a different learning culture, by rescuing important elements that have become wiped out of formal
