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There is limited awareness and knowledge of how teacher pedagogical reasoning and practice develops when teachers use information and communications technology (ICT). This is particularly so in the vocational education and training (VET) sector, where there is only limited awareness and knowledge of this territory. As the VET sector moves increasingly to the use of ICT to address the policy shift to flexible delivery on and off the job, VET teachers are faced with huge challenges. The question is; in what ways can teachers be best supported to meet these challenges? This paper presents a teacher profiling instrument that identifies teachers' strengths and professional development needs. The data gathered through the use of the profiling instrument was used to analyse professional learning needs for a group of trade teachers teaching in three regional areas in a public technical and further education institution. The profiling instrument is explained, and the following professional development is outlined to illustrate the value of the profiling instrument. © 2009 The Vocational Aspect of Education Ltd.

Tangaza College in Kenya, Mekelle University in Ethiopia and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands are working together in a new format of teaching and learning, namely the so-called Intercultural Virtual Seminar. By means of virtual communication, e-mail, MSN, Skype, SMS and a common website for shared documents and forum discussions students from the three partner institutions work together on sociotechnical problems, taking into account differences of culture and context. Despite low connectivity to Africa and the need to overcome cultural misunderstandings the experience is tremendous and very motivating for all parties involved. The Intercultural Virtual Seminar is being embedded in an innovation system in which technological expertise mainly from Delft University of Technology (but in exchange with the other partners) and contextual demands mainly from Africa (but in exchange with ideas from the Netherlands) are explored, new technological devices, and social institutions, procedures, skills are developed which can find their way into vocational training and small businesses and NGOs. Such an innovation system functions as an incubator for technology transfer and exchange. Internships, master theses, common research by the staff and in cooperation with third parties can make a difference.

“… inappropriate wage structures contribute to labor shortages … compressed wage differentials depress the incentive not only of workers to take training in higher skills, but of management to offer such training.” (Ulman 1968: 372) INTRODUCTION A noteworthy feature of the history of both vocational training and industrial relations in the United Kingdom is the high strike propensity of apprentices (i.e., young people engaged in work-based learning for craft occupations) in the metalworking industry during the middle of the last century. Between 1937 and 1964, seven actions launched by apprentices were sufficiently large and protracted to be termed strike movements, in that they spread across various districts, drew in many thousands of young people, and lasted for several weeks. In all cases, the apprentices acted largely autonomously, primarily in pursuit of higher pay for young males, the employment category that they dominated. The strikes were exceptional in that, although they had antecedents, they were largely confined to metalworking, and they had few counterparts in other sectors and countries with apprenticeship training, including the United States. Although some of the apprentice disputes have been discussed by social historians, they have been largely ignored in the literature on industrial relations, industrial training and vocational education. One reason for their neglect may be that their interpretation is not straightforward. From an economics–industrial-relations standpoint, the strikes may be viewed as just another category of industrial dispute, involving standard reciprocal threats of economic damage. © Cambridge University Press 2010.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) under pedagogical conditions can play a vital role in the structure of modern school. Interactive Videoconferencing (IVC) is a significant tool at the disposal of teachers and students, so that they can design and implement collaborative learning activities at a distance. The application of videoconferencing in schools is significantly increasing but there is an obvious lack in the pedagogical design of educational videoconferencing programs. Technology alone is not efficient enough and there is a demand for a holistic pedagogical framework and a practical guide for the development and implementation of collaborative learning environments at a distance via videoconferencing. This new book covers this need and supports schools, teachers and content providers to develop a variety of interactive educational programs through videoconferencing, aiming at the opening up of school to new learning, social and cultural environments. The pedagogical utilization of VC broadens the horizons in communication and collaboration in school classrooms worldwide, thus contributing greatly to the active participation of students in authentic environments of exploration and collaborative structure of knowledge and to the development of vital social skills. © 2009 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Students undertaking employment during term time is a growing phenomenon, and whilst there is an awareness that a large proportion of our undergraduates have part-time jobs, the type and extent of this work and the learning experiences gained is less clear. The purpose of this article is to outline research undertaken to determine the potential for students to gain academic credit for their learning from part-time, term-time work. This had involved an exploration of the incidence and the nature of this part-time work, the skills developed, learning derived and the students’ ability to reflect upon this learning. An exploratory approach was used, quantitative research providing the numerical data of the level of participation in term-time employment, with qualitative exploration to gain insight into the students’ ability to understand, articulate and reflect upon the learning that is taking place within work and gain an insight into participants’ ideas, views and motivations. The research provides substantial evidence of the engagement in part-time work and demonstrates a clear overview of the development of personal and social competencies along with key skills and job-specific knowledge. This has led to the validation and introduction of an intermediate-level Work Based learning module within the University of Huddersfield Business School, available as an alternative to a current core module, and which was to be evaluated during the course of the academic year 2007/2008. © 2009, UCU.

This qualitative case study was designed to provide an understanding of the work experience of Chinese college students in South Korea. A growing number of Chinese students are coming to South Korea for college education, and their aspirations for better work materialize into work experiences in South Korean businesses. In-depth interviews were conducted with five Chinese students to investigate their learning experience at local workplaces. The Chinese students' work experience not only led them to a deeper understanding of local culture and language, but also gave them integral learning within an experiential, situated learning environment. © 2009 National Institute of Education, Singapore.

Experiential learning is learning by doing and participating in activities that result in hands on approach to the transfer of knowledge. Experiential learning can be defined as a process by which the learner creates meaning from direct experience. Experiential-learning has been around for ages. It was one the first methods of educational instruction. Modern day experiential-learning theory has been mostly attributed to the works of John Dewey and David A. Kolb, but there have been contributions to the field made as far back as the French philosopher Rousseau in the early 19th century. (Kraft,1995). There are students who do not have the opportunity to participate in an off-campus internship or cooperative program due to various reasons, but there is an alternative option for students to enroll in an experiential-learning opportunity by registering for a course with an experiential-learning centered approach. The purpose of this paper is to determine the educational impact of experiential learning on the attitude and the performance of students in an "International Business unit". The paper presents a teaching model based on experiential learning in the "International Business" unit at undergraduate level. Preliminary analysis of 92 student evaluations determined the efficacy of experiential learning. To evaluate the cognitive (whether they learned from the experiential activity) and affective (did they like participating in this activity) impact on student learning. To evaluate the impact of experiential learning on ones own life. © Common Ground, Meena Chavan, All Rights Reserved.

The relationship between placement and academic performance on accounting and finance degrees is significantly under-researched. This paper examines the relationship between a number of factors, including placement, and academic performance as measured by average marks. Readily available data on placement status, gender, and prior achievement for the academic years ended 2004, 2005, and 2006 for students reading for an accounting and finance degree were used. Linear regression models were constructed using two versions of the data- one with all students in it and the second with graduates only. Placement students perform significantly better than full-time students do and, in the Graduates model, the female placement students perform significantly better than their male counterparts do. Most recent prior academic performance is significant in all models whereas gender had no separate significant effect on performance in the second and final years of the degree. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research into placement. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.

Contrary to popular myth, modern prison environments are often workplaces that embrace change and reform. When an innovative model for offender rehabilitation at a corrections centre requires staff to work differently as an inter-professional care team, new ways of learning to work in the overlaps emerge. Using a qualitative case study approach to investigate daily work and crucial incidents that act as change triggers, we discuss how this group experience has challenged individual and group work roles and changed organizational work practices. Our findings suggest a useful nexus of theories of workplace learning with theories of organizational change and development. The emergent quality of human interactions supports the concept of collective competence (Boreham 2004, 2007) rather than the comfort of individual competence. Enhanced understandings of collective learning as relationally-constructed and actively improvised with others argue for a new vocabulary of competence in which more interdisciplinary research can add further insights. © 2009 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Lifelong learning is a 'keystone' of educational policies (Faure, 1972) where the emphasis on learning shifts from teacher to learner. Higher Education (HE) institutions should be committed to developing lifelong learning, that is promoting learning that is flexible, diverse and relevant at different times, and in different places, and is pursued throughout life. Therefore the HE sector needs to develop effective strategies to encourage engagement in meaningful learning for diverse student populations. The use of e-portfolios, as a 'purposeful aggregation of digital items' (Sutherland & Powell, 2007), can meet the needs of the student community by encouraging reflection, the recording of experiences and achievements, and personal development planning (PDP). The use of e-portfolios also promotes inclusivity in learning as it provides students with the opportunity to articulate their aspirations and take the first steps along the pathway of lifelong learning. However, ensuring the uptake of opportunities within their learning is more complex than the students simply having access to the software. Therefore it is argued here that crucial to the effective uptake and engagement of the e-portfolio is embedding it purposefully within the curriculum. In order to investigate effective implementation of e-portfolios an explanatory case study on their use was carried out, initially focusing on 3 groups of students engaged in work-based learning and professional practice. The 3 groups had e-Portfolios embedded and assessed at different levels. Group 1 did not have the e-Portfolio embedded into their curriculum nor was the e-Portfolio assessed. Group 2 had the e-Portfolio embedded into the curriculum and formatively assessed. Group 3 also had the e-Portfolio embedded into the curriculum and were summatively assessed. Results suggest that the use of e-Portfolios needs to be integral to curriculum design in modules rather than used as an additional tool. In addition to this more user engagement was found in group 2 where the e-Portfolio was formatively assessed only. The implications of this case study are further discussed in terms of curriculum development.