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Competio existente entre os actuais concorrentes tem consequncias no nvel de
preos praticados, no ritmo da inovao e na capacidade instalada;
Diminuio ou aumento do poder negocial dos fornecedores poder tambm
obrigar a mudanas organizacionais.
Na presso endgena, salientam-se os seguintes elementos (BILHIM, 1996, p. 338):
Anlise do sistema tcnico estrutura, procedimentos, regulamentos;
Anlise do sistema social - grupos de presso no interior da organizao e clima
organizacional;
Anlise do desempenho - diagnstico feito com base em indicadores sobre o
sistema organizacional, tais como qualidade de servio, retorno do investimento,
volume de vendas, quota de mercado e estrutura econmica dos recursos existentes.
Da anlise do contexto dever resultar (BILHIM, 1996, p. 338):
Avaliao das caractersticas e capacidades de aco da organizao;
Avaliao da sua capacidade de concorrncia;
Percepo dos seus pontos fortes e fracos face concorrncia e, portanto, de como
se posicionar, por forma a explorar as suas vantagens;
Posicionamento dentro do sector de actividade;
Reajustamento das aplicaes de recursos para fortalecer certas reas que
correspondem a factores crticos de xito.
Neste modelo de mudana organizacional torna-se fundamental definir contedo da
mudana organizacional, podendo abranger as seguintes reas (BILHIM, 1996, p. 339):
Mudar a estrutura - Reorganizar implica conceber de novo a estrutura da organizao
uma mudana nos departamentos, na coordenao, nos nveis de controlo ou nos
centros de deciso;
Redefinir tarefas - Redefinir as tarefas dos colaboradores outra alternativa para a
mudana. Os estudos relativos s funes e tarefas servem de base para a funo
compensao em Gesto de Recursos Humanos e actualmente prendem-se com certos
movimentos que visam a reduo de efectivos nas organizaes, hoje conhecido como
downsizing e rightsizing;
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Mudar a tecnologia - As mudanas tecnolgicas so mudanas nos mtodos de trabalho
usados pela organizao;
Reengenharia organizacional - A reengenharia consiste na reformulao radical dos
processos de negcios de forma a alcanar um progresso dramtico nos nveis actuais
de desempenho, tais como o custo, a qualidade, o servio e a rapidez;
Comportamentos - ao actor social que compete construir e reconstruir a realidade
social e que consequentemente se dever actuar sobre as percepes e os
comportamentos;
Cultura - um processo lento e difcil que exige a substituio dos pressupostos
bsicos que enformam as normas, os valores e as crenas organizacionais, atingindo as
suas formas de pensar, sentir e agir;
Produtos ou servios - Pode haver necessidade de mudar o produto ou servio prestado
pela organizao.
Os processos de mudana podem seguir orientaes diversas, com pressupostos tericos e
modelos implcitos diferentes e diversos mecanismos de gesto da mudana, seguindo-se
uma breve descrio dos processos de gesto da mudana de Kurt Lewin, de Richard
Beckhard, de Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Quinn, Mills e Walton e de Pettigrew e Whipp
(BILHIM, 1996, p. 341).
Kurt Lewin definiu o mecanismo da gesto da mudana da seguinte maneira (BILHIM,
1996, p. 341):
Descongelamento - alterao do estado presente de equilbrio, responsvel pela
sustentao dos actuais comportamentos e atitudes;
Mudana - desenvolvimento de novas respostas, com base em nova informao;
Recongelamento - Estabilizao da mudana pela introduo de novas respostas.
Na perspectiva de Lewin h que seguir os seguintes passos para se obter uma mudana
bem sucedida (BILHIM, 1996, p. 341):
1. Anlise das foras que so opostas e que so favorveis mudana;
2. Diagnstico de quais de tais foras so as crticas;
3. Desenvolvimento de aces conducentes a fortalecer as foras favorveis e a
enfraquecer as desfavorveis.
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Richard Beckhard prescreve que a gesto da mudana compreende as seguintes fases
(BILHIM, 1996, p. 341):
1. Diagnstico do problema que necessita de mudana;
2. Fixao de objectivos e definio do estado futuro ou das condies
organizacionais desejadas aps a mudana;
3. Definio das actividades no momento da transio e da implicao necessria para
atingir o estado futuro;
4. Desenvolvimento de estratgias e de planeamento de aces para a gesto da
transio.
Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Quinn, Mills e Walton defendem que um processo de mudana
eficaz dever seguir os seguintes seis passos (BILHIM, 1996, p. 342):
1. Mobilizar as pessoas para a mudana atravs da anlise conjunta dos problemas da
competitividade;
2. Desenvolver uma viso partilhada sobre como se organizar e gerir para a
competitividade;
3. Incentivar o consenso acerca desta nova viso, formando as pessoas para a aco e
fomentando a coeso;
4. Espalhar a revitalizao por todos os departamentos, sem pressionar do topo;
5. Institucionalizar a revitalizao atravs de polticas formais, sistemas e estruturas;
6. Controlar e ajustar estratgias em resposta aos problemas do processo de revitalizao.
Na sequncia da sua investigao recente sobre gesto da mudana e sucesso competitivo
em sete empresas britnicas, Pettigrew e Whipp sugerem o seguinte quadro para a
mudana estratgica (BILHIM, 1996, p. 343):
Construo de um clima na empresa receptivo mudana. Isto implica justificar a
razo pela qual a mudana necessria;
Construir a capacidade de mudar antes de introduzir a mudana;
Estabelecer uma agenda da mudana, a qual no apenas deve estabelecer a direco do
negcio, mas tambm a viso necessria e os seus valores implcitos.
Sugerem ainda estes autores as seguintes medidas secundrias para apoiar a interveno
estratgica (BILHIM, 1996, p. 343):
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Transformar as intenes em componentes de aco;
Atribuir responsabilidades por estas componentes a gestores da mudana que actuam
no quadro de estruturas apropriadas e a diversos nveis da organizao;
Ajustar a funo compensao e o sistema de remunerao bem como os mecanismos
de comunicao aos objectivos da mudana.
Importa salientar que John Harvev-Jones refere que "gerir mudar e manter uma alta taxa
de mudana". Considera, ainda, que a mudana tem a ver com a insatisfao com o
presente e os seus traves so o medo do desconhecido e do futuro e que as pessoas no se
devero interrogar sobre se se vai mudar, mas antes, acerca de quando se comeou a
mudar, salientando que fundamental a percepo da necessidade de mudar como dos
riscos em no mudar, num processo de mudana em que as pequenas aces podero ter
um efeito cataltico fundamental (BILHIM, 1996, p. 342).
Torna-se claro que ultrapassar as resistncias individuais e organizacionais mudana ou
mesmo inverter os comportamentos e atitudes que se opem mudana crucial para o
processo de mudana numa organizao (CAMARA, GUERRA, & RODRIGUES, 1997,
p. 255).
Rosenberg refere treze factores de sucesso a considerar na elaborao de um plano de
gesto da mudana (ROSENBERG, 2006, p. 258):
Ter o apoio de lderes e de role models da organizao, estando includos neste
mbito quadros superiores, quadros mdios e supervisores que ao estarem
envolvidos na nova realidade encorajam os outros colaboradores a seguir o
exemplo;
Divulgar os casos de sucesso, quer atravs de reunies, texto, vdeo, online ou
qualquer outro formato, onde colaboradores da empresa relatam as suas
experincias, dificuldades e sucessos perante a nova realidade, no restringindo
unicamente ao relato dos benefcios que os colaboradores podem obter da nova
realidade;
Existem vrias formas como os recursos humanos lidam com a mudana, existindo
dois perfis que so verdadeiramente importantes na gesto da mudana, os early
adopters e os second-wave adopters, estes so os colaboradores com mais
capacidade de adaptao e que rapidamente adoptam as novas realidades. Estes
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colaboradores mais abertos mudana so fundamentais para influenciar os
restantes colaboradores da organizao, com a capacidade de explicar as alteraes
e demonstrar a sua prpria experincia, disseminando uma imagem positiva da
nova realidade. Na gesto da mudana devemos utilizar os early adopters para
integrar projectos-piloto anteriores implementao total de uma nova abordagem
de aprendizagem, monitorizando as suas atitudes e disponibilizando todo o apoio
que precisarem, no esquecendo que estes colaboradores vo ser os primeiros a ter
histrias de sucesso para contar. Os second wave adopters so colaboradores que
podem ser persuadidos a integrar a mudana, no entanto precisam de ser
convencidos e estes so candidatos ideais para testar a mudana e a estratgia de
mudana adoptada.
Os colaboradores esto mais propensos a adoptar a mudana quando acreditam
poder obter da benefcios, por essa razo fundamental eliminar todas as
consequncias negativas da participao e adoptar os benefcios certos, potenciando
a experimentao da mudana e, ainda mais importante, a adopo permanente da
mudana. Podero ser considerados como incentivos: remunerao,
reconhecimento, participao em eventos, formao avanada e enriquecimento
funcional.
Criar uma proposio de valor que consiga atingir pelo menos dois grupos distintos
de colaboradores, os gestores e utilizadores finais. Para os gestores o valor dever
estar centrado no aumento da produtividade, maior rapidez na aprendizagem,
aumento das vendas, satisfao do cliente e melhorias na capacidade de
investigao e desenvolvimento da organizao, enquanto para os utilizadores
finais o valor dever estar centrado na viso de melhoria futura, os benefcios que
possvel alcanar, facilitao da realizao do trabalho, poupar tempo, melhoria no
desempenho individual e a contribuio que ter na avaliao de desempenho
anual.
Envolver todos os stakeholders da organizao, desde gestores, developers,
utilizadores finais, promovendo o input de todos e alguma capacidade de deciso
no projecto, desde o seu arranque.
Evitar as mensagens negativas face mudana e reforar as comunicaes positivas
por parte de todos os agentes de mudana.
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normal assumirmos que num mundo onde a tecnologia est to disseminada que
todas as pessoas esto familiarizadas com a informtica e com a internet, no entanto
tal no uma realidade, pois para muitas todas estas ferramentas so ainda
novidade e por isso fundamental:
o Disponibilizar aos utilizadores demonstraes e testemunhos, prottipos
para experimentao, formao adequada, apoio e suporte.
o Disponibilizar equipa de desenvolvimento briefings tcnicos avanados;
o Disponibilizar ao departamento de TI e helpdesk a informao e preparao
em apoio tcnico.
Existe um perodo de tempo em que as pessoas esto a tentar compreender o
significado da mudana e por isso importante dar tempo para que se adaptem
nova realidade. Isto implica, criar um perodo de tempo que ajude a compreenso e
aceitao de uma nova realidade de aprendizagem e, durante este tempo,
necessrio apoiar atravs da comunicao, casos de sucesso, criao de modelos,
demonstraes e criao de prottipos.
A formao profissional uma pea fundamental da gesto da mudana, devendo
estar focada nas especificidades do utilizador final, atravs da prtica e da
simulao aplicadas ao contexto de trabalho e tambm focada nos gestores e no seu
papel na nova realidade.
Disponibilizar apoio contnuo no apenas na fase de implementao mas
principalmente aps a implementao, quer atravs de formao contnua, linhas de
apoio, newsletters, sites de apoio, testemunhos, casos de sucesso, estudo de casos e
reunies de acompanhamento.
Compreender que a resistncia mudana no incapacidade de mudana e que as
ferramentas de gesto da mudana, designadamente a formao, as demonstraes
e o apoio e acompanhamento, facilitam e aceleram o processo de mudana.
Utilizar um plano de comunicao que potencie a transio das trs fases do
processo de mudana para uma nova realidade:
1. Fase de ateno
2. Fase de compreenso
3. Fase de preferncia.
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Tabela 13 - Exemplo de um plano de gesto da mudana e de comunicao (ROSENBERG, 2006, p.
347)
Especificaes e tcticas de gesto da mudana e comunicao Fase de adopo
1 Identificar colaboradores chave como recurso e influncia perante os seus
pares e as suas comunidades, podendo assumir papeis de modelo e lideres
de opinio
Ateno e preferncia
2 Criar uma comisso de lderes e stakeholders que ter o papel de
defensores da mudana, sendo importante que estes sejam representativos
e respeitados pelos potenciais utilizadores
Compreenso
3 Publicar artigos de interesse para os colaboradores e hiperligaes para
prottipos num site do projecto
Ateno e compreenso
4 Enviar mailings com actualizaes do projecto atravs da equipa de
projecto, da comisso de lderes e stakeholders e dos gestores de topo,
com o objectivo de encorajar a utilizao do novo sistema, detalhar
responsabilidades dos colaboradores e possibilitar o seu feed-back
Ateno e compreenso
5 Organizar reunies de actualizao com lderes-chave para, pessoalmente,
responder a questes, apresentar briefings com a evoluo do projecto,
tecnologia, medidas de gesto da mudana, entre outras.
Compreenso
6 Enviar mailings regulares a todos os intervenientes Ateno e compreenso
7 Criar uma rea especfica do site de projecto que contenha documentao
e informao, como apresentaes, factos, screen shots e testemunhos
para os gestores poderem informar convenientemente as suas equipas
Compreenso
8 Organizar reunies departamentais para apoiar os gestores na introduo
da soluo s suas equipas
Ateno e compreenso
9 Identificar e integrar gestores no projecto para assumirem o papel de
modelo e disponibilizar-lhes formao especfica
Ateno, compreenso e preferncia
10 Criar prottipos antecipadamente e posicion-los em espaos estratgicos,
promovendo aces de coaching na sua utilizao.
Compreenso e preferncia
11 Disponibilizar ferramentas em prottipo para experimentao pela
comisso, lderes e colaboradores
Compreenso e preferncia
12 Disponibilizar comunidades para os grupos interessados, designadamente
comisso, equipa de projecto, modelos, early adopters e techies.
Preferncia
13 Definir e divulgar uma estrutura de gesto da nova soluo, sendo
importante: comunicar a estrutura de gesto a todos os colaboradores;
incorporar questes da sua gesto em workshops, formao e em outras
comunicaes; criar mecanismos de feed-back para todos os colaboradores
contriburem para a estrutura de gesto; criar grupos de representao de
toda a organizao (poder ser utilizada a comisso j constituda)
Compreenso e preferncia
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Especificaes e tcticas de gesto da mudana e comunicao Fase de adopo
14 Reestruturar a organizao para ir ao encontro das necessidades da
introduo do novo sistema. importante a forma como o trabalho vai ser
alterado, documentar alteraes e garantir que so suportadas pela
estrutura organizacional, comunicar e integrar as alteraes
designadamente na formao e mensagens da gesto de topo, e garantir
que os quadros mdios esto devidamente inseridos em todas as
mudanas.
Ateno
15 Tornar as FAQ acessveis e regularmente actualizadas, sendo que a sua
actualizao dever ter em conta inputs de reunies, e-mails, comisso e
equipa de projecto
Preferncia
16 Organizar almoos informais temticos que incluam tpicos relacionados
com o novo sistema, designadamente benefcios, tecnologia, alteraes no
contexto de trabalho, novos papis e responsabilidades
Preferncia
17 Implementar o reconhecimento de especialistas numa ptica de encorajar
as contribuies
Preferncia
18 Ajustar o sistema de avaliao de desempenho de forma a reconhecer a
participao e a contribuio para a utilizao do novo sistema. Definir
critrios mensurveis para a avaliao de desempenho, criar guias de
coaching para gestores intermdios melhorarem a sua capacidade de
liderana no processo de mudana e disponibilizar informao sobre
comportamentos desapropriados.
Preferncia
19 Criar comunicaes especficas focadas no valor que o sistema tem para
os utilizadores e nos benefcios e recompensas associados sua utilizao,
onde podero constar testemunhos reais e comentrios de quadros
superiores.
Preferncia
20 Desenvolver workshops especficos para quadros mdios sobre o novo
sistema e o seu papel na facilitao de adopo e da mudana
Compreenso e preferncia
21 Desenvolver briefings aprofundados sobre a tecnologia comisso,
quadros mdios, entre outros, e publica-los no site de projecto, permitindo
que todos os intervenientes e stakeholders tenham a possibilidade de dar
feed-back
Compreenso
22 Criar mensagens especficas dos lderes do projecto relativas ao novo
sistema que sero, posteriormente, analisadas pelos gestores intermdios e
suas equipas
Ateno
23 Disponibilizar formao a todos os colaboradores na utilizao do novo
sistema, acompanhada por um sistema de ajuda e visitas guiadas. A
formao a disponibilizar aos gestores intermdios no entanto especfica
e deve ser realizada antecipadamente
Compreenso e preferncia
24 Criar sistemas de ajuda, manuais de utilizador, visitas guiadas e outros
meios de ajuda online
Compreenso
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Especificaes e tcticas de gesto da mudana e comunicao Fase de adopo
25 Disponibilizar testemunhos e casos de sucesso na utilizao do novo
sistema, designadamente na facilidade de utilizao, valor e benefcios,
podendo ser utilizados meios audiovisuais como o vdeo para publicar
apresentaes e testemunhos na Web
Preferncia
No estudo de caso da PWC Consulting, apresentado por Don Morrison, relativo ao seu
grupo L&K, uma unidade orgnica global cujo principal objectivo gerir um programa de
formao que integra formao presencial, e-learning e ambientes colaborativos online,
uma das principais preocupaes de David Stirling, responsvel da gesto da mudana no
processo de integrao nos Estados Unidos da Amrica e pretendia-se que esta unidade
orgnica, que tinha a responsabilidade apoiar os colaboradores que lidam directamente
com o cliente disponibilizando a formao, passassem a ser parte da equipa de negcio da
empresa e no apenas da estrutura de suporte. Assim, foram definidos objectivos de
negcio para esta unidade orgnica da PWC, designadamente (MORRISON, 2003, p. 311):
Atingir 90% dos colaboradores e scios da PWC Consulting com formao
orientada;
Contribuir para ganhar 10 novos projectos de consultoria;
Recuperar 7 milhes de dlares dos custos fixos do oramento do Global Training
Centre e do Learning and Professional Development Centre;
Aumentar a utilizao da Network of Electronic Interfaces na SAP, na FMS e
Pharmaceutical practices em 25%
Aumentar a disponibilizao de intervenes pedaggicas em blended learning em
50%;
Aumentar o nmero de pessoas ligadas nas comunidades SAP e PM;
Recolher aprendizagens das contas estratgicas SAP, FMS e Pharmaceutical
practices
Disponibilizar solues de aprendizagem, conhecimento e metodologias atravs de
20 contas SMARTS.
A definio de objectivos na gesto da mudana organizacional fundamental pois
permite: definir e orientar um plano de aco, acompanhar a evoluo do processo, corrigir
eventuais desvios e avaliar os resultados alcanados.
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5.6. Governance da formao profissional nas empresas
O modelo actual de formao, formao presencial centrada num professor-formador, est
a ser desafiado pela prpria sociedade e pela evoluo tecnolgica, passando de um
modelo centrado na transferncia de conhecimentos para o formando para um modelo de
orientao de redes de indivduos para problemas ou oportunidades especficas e a
aprendizagem est a evoluir dentro e fora das organizaes e enquanto as suas reas de
formao base esto a ser secundarizadas. Actualmente a informao um activo valioso,
que possudo por indivduos e disseminado atravs da comunicao, sendo a criao
partilhada de conhecimento um mecanismo de criao de valor. As reas de formao
profissional das empresas devero evoluir e aderir s novas tecnologias da Web 2.0 como
forma de acompanhar a evoluo dos prprios colaboradores (O'DRISCOLL, 2008).
Os princpios e tecnologias da Web 2.0 tem uma capacidade para alterar significativamente
processos e procedimentos nas organizaes, sendo necessrio reavaliar a criao e
execuo da aprendizagem nas organizaes, internamente e externamente, bem como
reavaliar a prpria gesto da formao profissional nas empresas (OEHLERT, 2008).
Um dos pontos por vezes descurados na estratgia de aprendizagem e recursos numa smart
enterprise o governance, ou seja, o processo de tomada de deciso e gesto da estratgia
de aprendizagem. O governance da aprendizagem numa organizao pode assumir um
processo de tomada de deciso formal com bastante poder e controlo ou uma estrutura
informal colaborativa que apenas informa os intervenientes da actualidade do modelo de
aprendizagem (ROSENBERG, 2006, p. 284). Tambm Veen, tendo em conta uma fora de
trabalho mais participativa e autnoma no seu desenvolvimento profissional, refere uma
estrutura informal colaborativa de aprendizagem, em que a gesto da formao profissional
deve disponibilizar o modelo e estrutura de aprendizagem e atribuir a responsabilidade de
aprendizagem e desenvolvimento aos colaboradores (VEEN, E-Learning em contexto
organizacional. Entrevista transcrita em anexo, 2009).
O governance traz as seguintes vantagens para uma organizao (ROSENBERG, 2006, p.
284):
Evitar duplicaes de esforos e alavancar os recursos existentes;
Agrupar vrios lderes da organizao numa nica voz;
Proporcionar maior alavancagem estratgica aprendizagem;
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Proporcionar uma viso mais estratgica a todos os intervenientes;
Centralizar estruturas tcnicas, desenvolvimento profissional e gesto de
fornecedores;
Descentralizar desenvolvimento de contedos e a sua disponibilizao;
Desenvolver um plano de staff que permita aproveitar as suas competncias
tcnicas;
Segundo Rosenberg existem dez princpios que apoiam a elaborao de um modelo de
governance (ROSENBERG, 2006, p. 285):
Obter acordo de todos os intervenientes na criao de um modelo de governance;
Elaborar um conjunto de princpios operacionais do modelo que seja aceite por
todos os intervenientes;
Evitar o controlo e o poder sobre o governance e potenciar a colaborao entre os
intervenientes tendo em vista os interesses globais;
Envolver todos os intervenientes e stakeholders por forma a facilitar a aceitao e a
contribuio de todos;
Aproveitar as actividades de governance para formar os intervenientes em vrias
temticas, como questes organizacionais, estratgias de aprendizagem,
tecnologias, desafios e oportunidades;
Incluir actividades presenciais e virtuais no mbito do grupo de governance;
Criar valor para os vrios intervenientes potenciando o seu interesse e a
participao nas actividades;
Recorrer a parceiros e fornecedores em reas em que no existam competncias
internas no grupo de governance;
Garantir o apoio da gesto de topo de forma a aumentar o poder e o impacto do
grupo de governance;
Incutir um esprito de transparncia nas actividades realizadas pelo grupo de
governance, recolhendo o input de todos os intervenientes e comunicando com os
mesmos.
importante igualmente criar regras de utilizao, que no caso da IBM se reflecte na IBM
Social Computing Guidelines, que suportado na legislao aplicvel e na IBM Business
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Conduct Guidelines , apresenta as seguintes 12 directrizes a utilizar por colaboradores em
blogues, wikis, redes sociais e outras formas de colaborao online (IBM):
1. Conhecer e seguir o IBMs Business Conduct Guidelines
2. Responsabilizao pelos contedos que publicados em blogues, wikis e outras
ferramentas de user-generated media
3. Identificao atravs do nome e funo desempenhada quando debatidos assuntos
da IBM ou relacionados com a IBM, apresentando o seu ponto de vista e evitando
falar em nome da IBM;
4. Caso o colaborador publique contedos em algum website fora da IBM sobre o
trabalho que desenvolve ou temticas no mbito da actividade da IBM dever,
igualmente, publicar o seguinte aviso "The postings on this site are my own and
don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions."
5. Respeitar a legislao aplicvel a direitos de autor, fair use e financial disclosure;
6. No utilizar qualquer informao confidencial ou proprietria;
7. No citar ou referenciar clientes, parceiros ou fornecedores sem o seu
consentimento prvio;
8. Respeitar a sua audincia, no utilizando calnias de origem tnica, insultos,
obscenidades ou adoptar qualquer conduta que no seria aceitvel num local de
trabalho da IBM e mostrar considerao pela privacidade de terceiros e por tpicos
eventualmente polmicos ou questionveis, como por exemplo sobre poltica e
religio;
9. Citar outros indivduos que publicam contedos sobre a mesma temtica;
10. Ter ateno na sua associao IBM em redes sociais online e caso se apresentem
como colaboradores IBM devero faz-lo assegurando que o seu perfil e contedos
disponibilizados so consistentes com a forma como se apresentam a colegas e
clientes;
11. Evitar conflitos, devendo ser os primeiros a corrigir os seus prprios erros e a
indicar alteraes realizadas em comentrios anteriormente colocados;
12. Criar valor acrescentado atravs de informao e perspectivas que sejam
proveitosas.
Oehlert refere que ser importante desenvolver um processo que permita avaliar
rapidamente estas tecnologias, eventualmente atravs de uma equipa integrada de projecto
com elementos das reas de TI, Gesto de Recursos Humanos, Formao e gestores, com
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capacidades de analisar as questes tecnolgicas, humanas, aprendizagem e alinhamento
com o negcio (OEHLERT, 2008).
115
6. Tendncias futuras em aprendizagem distncia
Actualmente vive-se num contexto de mudana e evoluo acelerada a nvel social,
econmico e tecnolgico e, assim, tambm o e-learning continua a evoluir, tendo surgido,
recentemente, referncias ao e-learning 3.0. Esta nova realidade, a ser despoletada por uma
futura Web 3.0, encontra-se assente em quatro pilares (WHEELER, 2009):
Sistemas informticos distribudos - alm do provvel advento da Web 3.0 e da
Web semntica, quer o aumento da facilidade de acesso e a agregao de
ferramentas e servios de personalizao da aprendizagem, quer a evoluo dos
sistemas informticos distribudos e do armazenamento e recuperao de
informao, iro potenciar a auto organizao da aprendizagem individual;
Tecnologia mvel inteligente - a evoluo na tecnologia mvel, tanto ao nvel dos
equipamentos como dos servios, permitir o acesso informao e ao
conhecimento por qualquer indivduo em movimento, possibilitando a
aprendizagem em qualquer parte do mundo;
Filtragem inteligente de recursos colaborativos - funcionalidades de filtragem
preditiva e de participao massiva de multi-utilizadores facilitar a colaborao
online;
Visualizao e interaco em 3D velocidade de processamento superior de
informao dos computadores e uma capacidade de resoluo superior dos
monitores iro aperfeioar avatars e os equipamentos de 3D multi-gesture e multi-
touch iro melhorar tarefas de gesto de ficheiros, manipulao de objectos virtuais
e explorao de espaos virtuais.
Os mundos virtuais so j muito utilizados a nvel individual e a nvel organizacional e vo
de encontro s caractersticas do Homo-Zappiens, designadamente no que toca
necessidade de estar conectado, fazer uma utilizao colaborativa, aprender atravs de
jogos, necessidade de fantasia e a utilizao amigvel da tecnologia.
A reduo da presena na aprendizagem uma realidade na utilizao de e-learning 2.0 e o
prximo passo na reduo de presena ser a utilizao de novas tecnologias, como
representaes fsicas e hologramas, em que dois ou mais indivduos espacialmente
distantes se podero encontrar num espao comum, real ou virtual, atravs de imagens
tridimensionais de si prprios ou atravs de avatars. Veen refere o exemplo de uma
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estao de televiso que realizou uma entrevista sem a presena fsica mas com o seu
holograma emitido a partir de outro estdio (VEEN, E-Learning em contexto
organizacional. Entrevista transcrita em anexo, 2009).
Um mundo virtual um ambiente simulado suportado por computador em que os
utilizadores habitam e interagem atravs de avatars (American Society for Training &
Development) e caracterizado e diferenciado de outras realidades e plataformas atravs
dos seguintes seis factores (OLBRISH, 2009):
Ambiente imersivo - Os mundos virtuais tm um local ou locais que representam o
mundo, em trs dimenses ou no, que transmitem uma perspectiva de espao;
Avatars - a representao fsica de um utilizador de um mundo virtual, sendo
seleccionada pelo utilizador e no tem de ser parecida com a forma como o utilizador
se apresenta, age, fala perante os outros no mundo real. Este controlado pelo
utilizador e atravs do qual pode interagir num dado ambiente digital;
Interaco e comunicao com outros utilizadores - os mundos virtuais so ambientes
multiplayer, permitindo o acesso de vrios utilizadores no mesmo espao e ao mesmo
tempo, possibilitando assim a interaco entre os mesmos. A comunicao pode ser
realizada atravs de mensagens de texto, VoIP ou vdeo. Existem ainda a possibilidade
de comunicao no-verbal atravs do avatar, com gestos, movimentos e expresses
para comunicao in-world com outros;
Interaco com o mundo virtual - o utilizador pode interagir com o mundo virtual,
podendo realizar aces e interagir, incluindo criao de contedos no prprio mundo
virtual;
Contexto - ao contrrio de jogos virtuais multiplayer, os mundos virtuais no tm
qualquer argumento ou objectivos de participao, apenas reflecte o que as pessoas
fazem no mundo real, reagindo aos eventos que os rodeiam e criando um contexto ou
comunidade;
Persistncia - para ser considerado um mundo fundamental a sua existncia,
independentemente da influncia individual de cada utilizador, ou seja, o mundo
virtual, semelhana de qualquer local fsico, continua a existir e a mudar sem a
presena de qualquer utilizador especfico.
O Second Life um espao simulado alargado que contm outras simulaes, sendo um
espao onde as leis da fsica so eliminadas ou alteradas, onde os utilizadores seleccionam
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e alteram a sua aparncia, conhecido como avatar, nesse mundo virtual e onde as
possibilidades de aprendizagem so grandes. As caractersticas deste mundo virtual
superficial e tende a atrair a ateno de novos utilizadores, pois possvel andar, correr,
conduzir veculos, voar ao estilo de um super heri e inclusivamente ser teletransportado
de um local para outro. Os prprios avatars podem assumir aparncias fantsticas,
incluindo asas ou corpos de sereias, de acordo com a opo dos utilizadores (BRANDON,
2007) que se assume como um benefcio acrescido de possibilitar aos utilizadores a
difuso, no apenas das suas especializaes, mas tambm da sua personalidade atravs de
customizao de avatars (QUINN, 2009). Para designers, developers e gestores de e-
learning o Second Life uma plataforma que permite a criao de simulaes e ambientes
de aprendizagem e interaco. Neste mundo virtual possvel criar objectos, desde um
helicptero at um centro de formao virtual, e existem utilizadores especialistas no
desenvolvimento destes objectos que podero apoiar sua construo (BRANDON, 2007).
A potencialidade do Second Life como ambiente de aprendizagem cresceu perante a
introduo de conversao via udio em 2007, possibilitando a qualquer utilizador com
microfone e auscultadores ou colunas externas a conversao em tempo real com outros
utilizadores, incluindo funcionalidades de posicionamento udio, incluindo variao de
volume e estreo em funo da distanciamento e posio entre utilizadores. No entanto,
funcionalidades de instant messaging e chat continuam disponveis. Os objectos criados
podem ter ainda acesso controlado, permitindo apenas a entrada de utilizadores
pertencentes a uma dada listagem. Estas caractersticas permitem a realizao de
actividades pedaggicas num mundo virtual como se num mundo real se tratasse
(BRANDON, 2007).
Existem ainda outras funcionalidades no Second Life relevantes em contextos de
aprendizagem, como o vdeo e udio em contnuo colocados em objectos, possibilidade de
hiperligao a recursos dentro e fora do mundo virtual, comunicao flexvel atravs de
instant messaging, conversao atravs de texto com vrios utilizadores, conversao
udio e ainda espao social onde possvel a interaco entre utilizadores (BRANDON,
2007).
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Ilustrao 12 - English Village - Espao social de conversao informal para aprendizagem de ingls como
segunda lngua (BRANDON, 2007)
Em contexto de ensino universitrio o exemplo da Berkman Center for Internet and
Society at Harvard Law School que detm a Austin Hall na Berkman Island que inclui um
auditrio virtual a funcionar no Second Life (BRANDON, 2007).
Ilustrao 13 - Austin Hall, Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School (BRANDON, 2007)
Ainda na Berkman Island no Second Life existe uma simulao de tribunal para utilizao
por estudantes de direito, que se assume como uma actividade de jogos de papis, muito
utilizada em formao presencial, onde os utilizadores assumem os papis de testemunhas,
advogados, jris, juzes, mas num mundo virtual (BRANDON, 2007).
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Ilustrao 14 - Tribunal - Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School (BRANDON, 2007)
Existem actualmente vrios mundos virtuais, no entanto, nem todos so apropriados para
utilizao em contexto organizacional, sendo que nesse contexto temos os seguintes
mundos (OLBRISH, 2009):
Active Worlds
Multiverse
OLIVE
OpenSim
Protosphere
Qwaq
Second Life
VastPark
Tendo em conta a representao do espao e do indivduo, os mundos virtuais tm
potencialidades nicas para a aprendizagem em contexto organizacional, designadamente
(BRANDON, 2007):
Criao de ambientes de aprendizagem realistas e integrantes;
Colaborao sncrona de equipas dispersas geograficamente sobre documentos,
projectos, melhoria de processos e desenvolvimento de produtos;
Realizao de apresentaes, conferncias e eventos para grupos numerosos de
indivduos;
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Discusso e brainstorming de experiencias ou situaes atravs da interaco e
conversao de indivduos e equipas dispersas geograficamente;
Coaching no desempenho, atravs da interaco e acompanhamento entre gestores,
formadores e outros especialistas com os colaboradores.
O Second Life comparvel a outras plataformas sncronas de e-learning, podendo ser
utilizada na aprendizagem distncia, com ferramentas colaborativas e com a
possibilidade de criao de objectos para utilizao assncrona (BRANDON, 2007).
Em contextos organizacionais, temos o exemplo da IBM que detm 50 ilhas no Second
Life utilizadas para orientaes, formao e reunies (LEVY & YUPANGCO, 2008) e
afirmam ter reduzido $ 320.000 em custos em deslocaes num nico evento (OLBRISH,
2009). No entanto a utilizao de mundos virtuais encontra-se devidamente orientada
atravs da IBM Virtual World Guidelines (LEVY & YUPANGCO, 2008) A IBM encoraja
os seus colaboradores a utilizarem mundos virtuais no desenvolvimento de contactos,
aprendizagem e colaborao, de uma forma responsvel e de acordo com as directrizes
disponibilizadas, que incluem 11 tpicos fundamentais (IBM):
Empreender numa explorao responsvel e no desenvolvimento de contactos,
aprendizagem e colaborao;
Utilizar o bom senso perante boas e ms situaes encaradas em mundos virtuais;
Proteger o bom nome do colaborador e da IBM
Proteger a privacidade de terceiros, no que toca disponibilizao de informao
confidencial ou proprietria de pessoas, organizaes, clientes e da prpria IBM;
Criar uma boa impresso atravs de avatar sensato e apropriado s actividades a
realizar, especialmente quando em representao da IBM, sugerindo a utilizao de
avatars distintos em situaes profissionais e pessoais;
Respeitar a propriedade intelectual da IBM e de terceiros, evitando a violao de
direitos de propriedade intelectual;
Realizar actividades profissionais em representao da IBM em ambientes virtuais
devero ser sujeitas a autorizao explcita da gesto e das delegaes, podendo o
colaborador ser sujeito utilizao de um avatar reservado actividade profissional;
Ser verdadeiro e consistente na actuao em mundos virtuais perante os restantes
utilizadores;
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A IBM consegue controlar o ambiente em contexto real dentro da empresa,
designadamente no que toca a discriminao e assdio, no entanto em contexto virtuais
no consegue controlar e no se responsabiliza pela actividade realizada dentro de
mundos virtuais. Por essa razo, se um colaborador, estiver num ambiente virtual e ao
mesmo tempo a trabalhar na IBM, ao deparar-se com um comportamento que no seria
aceitvel dentro da IBM, dever afastar-se ou sair do mundo virtual, devendo reportar a
situao ao service provider e em casos relacionados com o trabalho, dever reportar a
situao sua chefia ou atravs de canais internos;
Ser um bom 3d Netizen, devendo ser srio, colaborativo e inovador na sua participao
em comunidades de mundos virtuais;
Viver os valores IBM e seguir o IBM Business Conduct Guidelines
A nvel do ensino, Veen refere a utilizao de laboratrios virtuais para a realizao de
experincias, em que um mundo virtual utilizado, neste caso o Wonderland, em que
grupos de trs ou quatro estudantes de Fsica e Engenharia trabalham e colaboram na
realizao de experincias, obtendo vantagens ao nvel motivacional e ao nvel da
aprendizagem devido percepo de presena social (VEEN, E-Learning em contexto
organizacional. Entrevista transcrita em anexo, 2009).
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7. Concluses
A implementao do e-learning em contexto organizacional apresenta potenciais
benefcios para a organizao, para o departamento de formao profissional, para os
formadores e para os formandos, dos quais se salientam os seguintes (HORTON, 2002, p.
5):
Aumento das vendas da organizao;
Melhoria na rapidez e facilidade de adaptao a envolventes externas em constante
mudana e evoluo;
Melhoria no desempenho dos recursos humanos;
Reduo do tempo dispendido fora do posto de trabalho;
Recrutar e reter os melhores colaboradores;
Reduo de custos em formao profissional;
Disponibilizar formao profissional a colaboradores que, atendendo a
determinadas caractersticas no podem ser abrangidos pela formao presencial;
Melhorar a imagem do departamento de formao profissional;
Possibilidades alargadas de carreira para profissionais da formao profissional;
Maior controlo da formao profissional por parte dos colaboradores.
Actualmente existem vrias geraes na vida activa, designadamente os veteranos, baby-
boomers, gerao X e gerao Y, que comprovadamente apresentam formas de trabalhar e
aprender bastante distintas.
A gerao Y difere de todas as anteriores, devido circunstncia de terem crescido na era
digital, uma realidade em que os suportes de comunicao e informao esto disponveis a
qualquer individuo e podem ser utilizadas de forma activa. Esta gerao dispende muitas
horas a ver televiso, a jogar computador, a falar em chatrooms e comunicam com os seus
pares atravs de aplicativos e dispositivos como a televiso, o MSN, telemveis, iPods,
blogues, Wikis, Chatrooms, consolas de jogos e outras plataformas de comunicao
(VEEN & VRAKKING, 2006, p. 29), originando uma forma de raciocnio e
processamento de informao completamente diferente das geraes anteriores (HART,
2008).
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A entrada da gerao Y no mercado de trabalho poder implicar as seguintes alteraes nas
organizaes (SHEPHERD, 2009):
Oportunidade de realizao de cursos de auto-aprendizagem, que poder ser realizado a
qualquer hora e em qualquer lugar;
Utilizao de jogos, simuladores e cenrios para envolver indivduos e grupos;
Utilizao de ferramentas colaborativas como fruns, redes sociais, blogues e wikis
para colaborao na resoluo de problemas em contexto de trabalho;
Utilizao de e-assessment na avaliao da formao reduzindo a carga administrativa
na gesto do ensino e da formao;
Utilizao de webconferencing em eventos de grupo;
Utilizao de materiais pedaggicos online, com texto, grficos, udio e vdeo no apoio
ao desempenho no trabalho;
Integrao de todos os elementos acima e mtodos tradicionais de formao em regime
de blended learning para maximizar a eficincia e a eficcia.
Presentemente, a aprendizagem ocorre em ambientes virtuais, onde os elementos centrais
do conhecimento esto em constante mudana, localizando-se em ambientes externos ao
indivduo, designadamente, bases de dados e organizaes. Note-se que esta aprendizagem
caracteriza-se por conectar conjuntos de informaes especializadas, assumindo as
referidas conexes um suporte para aprofundar a aprendizagem numa dada rea do
conhecimento (SIEMENS, 2004).
Recorrendo orientao perfilhada por Siemens, o conhecimento individual parte de uma
rede que alimenta as organizaes, que por sua vez alimentam novamente a rede,
continuando, desta forma, a promover aprendizagem para o indivduo. Este ciclo de
desenvolvimento do conhecimento permite que os indivduos se mantenham actualizados
nas suas reas de conhecimento, atravs dos contactos pessoais e profissionais que
estabeleceram (SIEMENS, 2004).
Factores como a mudana acelerada, ao nvel da informao, e a presso concorrencial da
economia global ditaram que a aprendizagem no poder continuar dependente de cursos
de formao ou mdulos de e-learning, pois o tempo para a elaborao deste tipo
contedos demasiado longo, tornando-os desactualizados pela altura da sua
disponibilizao aos colaboradores e, tambm, o pouco tempo disponvel destes no
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permite a realizao de cursos completos. Ora, por estas razes um colaborador precisa,
cada vez mais, de aprendizagens curtas para aplicao directa perante as suas necessidades
imediatas no desempenho de funes (MARTIN & PARKER, 2008).
O E-learning 2.0 surge em 2005 como uma nova forma de utilizar o e-learning, inspirado
na Web 2.0, uma tecnologia de internet e Web design orientado para a partilha de
informao e para o aumento da colaborao entre utilizadores, suportada por vrias
ferramentas, como comunidades online e servios como redes sociais, wikis e blogues
(American Society for Training & Development), que possibilitam uma aprendizagem just-
in-time em contexto de trabalho.
O e-learning 2.0 est presente, de uma forma no estruturada em qualquer contexto
organizacional, atravs de redes sociais como o linkedIn, publicao contedos atravs de
blogues e wikis, (SCHLENKER, 2008) e est, igualmente, presente de forma estruturada
em contextos organizacionais atravs de LMS e LCMS, designadamente, ATutor, AulaNet,
AulaVox, BlackBoard Learning System, Dokeos, eLearningKI, Elluminate, FirstClass,
Formare, IBM Lotus LMS, IntraLearn, Moodle, OLAT, Sakai e Teleformar.net, incluindo
funcionalidades de aprendizagem colaborativa nas suas especificaes (RIBEIRO,
GARCEZ DE LENCASTRE, & VIEIRA, 2007).
Na realidade organizacional, Rosenberg apresenta uma arquitectura de aprendizagem e
desempenho com componentes de e-learning 2.0, que se assume como a integrao
sistematizada de abordagens, electrnicas e no electrnicas, que facilitam a
aprendizagem, apoio formal e informal no posto de trabalho e, principalmente, a melhoria
do desempenho dos recursos humanos. Esta abordagem, exposta, inclui formao
presencial, formao online, apoio ao desempenho, mentoring e coaching, repositrio de
informao, comunidades e especialistas, devidamente integrados na mesma estrutura de
aprendizagem e desempenho (ROSENBERG, 2006, p. 73).
A pesquisa realizada permitiu a identificao de reas que podero ser impactadas pela
implementao do e-learning 2.0 em contexto organizacional, designadamente, na
avaliao da aprendizagem, competncias dos tcnicos e gestores de recursos humanos,
chefias e de recursos humanos em geral, identificao e gesto de especialistas, gesto da
mudana e cultura organizacional e na gesto da formao profissional nas empresas.
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importante, tambm, saber se a metodologia de avaliao da formao utilizada no e-
learning 1.0 poder ser aplicada no e-learning 2.0. Partindo do modelo de Kirkpatrick, um
dos mais utilizados em contexto organizacional, relevante saber se a avaliao de
reaco, a avaliao de conhecimentos, a avaliao de comportamentos e a avaliao de
resultados podero ser utilizadas em e-learning 2.0 (THALHEIMER, 2008).
A avaliao de reaco dever continuar a ser aplicada em e-learning 2.0 como forma de
aferir a percepo e padres de utilizao por parte dos formandos, tendo sempre em
ateno que este nvel de avaliao: no possibilita uma relao directa com o desempenho
no posto de trabalho; poder ser favorecido pelo carcter de inovao desta metodologia e
apresenta dificuldades de aferio da qualidade dos contedos disponibilizados por parte
dos formandos.
A avaliao das aprendizagens torna-se difcil em ambientes de e-learning 2.0 devido ao
carcter de mutabilidade e evoluo dos contedos presentes nestas ferramentas,
designadamente, em blogues e em wikis, e de no existir a definio prvia de objectivos
pedaggicos que permitam a avaliao comparativa entre objectivos e resultados de uma
actividade pedaggica.
A avaliao de comportamentos poder ser, efectivamente, o melhor nvel para avaliao
actividades pedaggicas realizadas em ambientes de e-learning 2.0, pois neste nvel o que
realmente importa a mudana de comportamentos no posto de trabalho e aferir se o fluxo
entre a aprendizagem e a aplicao do conhecimento em contexto de trabalho foi realizado.
A avaliao de resultados, incluindo uma avaliao do ROI, em e-learning 2.0 tambm
um bom nvel para avaliar e-learning 2.0, sendo fundamental a aplicao de tcnicas de
isolamento da influncia de factores externos para ser fivel.
No que concerne s competncias, os gestores e chefias de uma organizao devero
adquirir e desenvolver competncias de liderana para facilitar a introduo do e-learning
2.0 numa organizao. Os profissionais da rea da formao profissional devero adquirir e
desenvolver competncias comportamentais de atitude perante os outros, aprendizagem
contnua e capacidade de colaborar e competncias tcnicoprofissionais de informtica e
numa ptica de aprendizagem contnua devero acompanhar a informao disponibilizada
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nas suas reas de conhecimento. Os colaboradores em geral, principalmente indivduos que
no pertenam s geraes digitais, devero adquirir e desenvolver competncias
tcnicoprofissionais na rea da informtica que lhes permitam utilizar as ferramentas de e-
learning 2.0.
A colaborao entre indivduos fundamental para o e-learning 2.0 e o papel de
especialistas nas diversas reas de conhecimento de uma organizao crucial, pois a
disseminao do conhecimento destes torna-se uma grande mais-valia para os restantes
colaboradores. O papel da Gesto de Recursos Humanos e da tecnologia na identificao e
gesto destes especialistas fundamental, pois so eles que podero facilitar a
disseminao e alimentao da rede de conhecimento de uma organizao.
A cultura organizacional algo intangvel, implcita e dada como certa, sendo que cada
organizao desenvolve um conjunto de pressupostos, compreenses e regras implcitas
que guiam o comportamento dirio no local de trabalho (BILHIM, 1996, p. 163).
Para a introduo do e-learning 2.0 fundamental uma cultura assente em valores de
colaborao, participao, compromisso e de mrito, em ltima anlise uma cultura de
aprendizagem e de desempenho, que permita a implementao de uma metodologia de
aprendizagem que exige a colaborao e a partilha de informao entre os colaboradores
dentro de uma organizao, tendo como principal objectivo o desempenho no posto de
trabalho.
A mudana vista como uma observao emprica de diferenas, ao longo do tempo, em
uma ou mais dimenses de uma determinada entidade (BILHIM, 1996, p. 335).
Mudar a forma como as pessoas adquirem competncias e melhoram o seu desempenho
pode perturbar os nveis individuais de conforto dos colaboradores e de romper com a
cultura organizacional existente, pois mesmo que a mudana crie benefcios claros a toda a
organizao, a falta de ateno a atitudes, credos e prticas j existentes pode gerar
desiluso e a resistncia mudana introduzida (ROSENBERG, 2006, p. 257).
Para facilitar a mudana organizacional fundamental a implementao de um modelo de
gesto da mudana que inclua: a definio do contedo e plano do que se vai mudar, a
escolha de um processo de implementao da mudana e uma metodologia de avaliao do
processo de mudana que permita ultrapassar as resistncias individuais e organizacionais
127
mudana e inverter os comportamentos e atitudes que se opem mudana
organizacional.
Os princpios e tecnologias da Web 2.0 tm uma capacidade para alterar significativamente
processos e procedimentos nas organizaes, sendo necessrio reavaliar a criao e
execuo da aprendizagem nas organizaes, internamente e externamente, bem como
reavaliar a prpria gesto da formao profissional nas empresas (OEHLERT, 2008).
Sublinha-se que alterao da formao profissional tradicional para uma formao
profissional centrada em valores de colaborao e partilha implica uma alterao
substancial no modelo de governance, ou seja, no processo de tomada de deciso e gesto
da estratgia de aprendizagem nas organizaes. Neste mbito, existem duas opes para o
governance da aprendizagem numa organizao, a saber: assumir um processo de tomada
de deciso formal com bastante poder e controlo ou assumir uma estrutura informal
colaborativa que apenas informa os intervenientes da actualidade do modelo de
aprendizagem.
Por ltimo e analisando a evoluo futura dos ambientes de aprendizagem fundamental
considerar os mundos virtuais que progrediram bastante no passado recente e que esto
assentes, igualmente, em valores de colaborao e partilha de informao em ambientes de
realidade virtual, vislumbrando-se uma utilizao cada vez mais massiva destes ambientes
no mbito da aprendizagem.
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Anexo Entrevista ao Professor Wim Veen - E-learning em contexto
organizacional
No mbito desta dissertao de mestrado foram estabelecidos contactos com vrios
especialistas nacionais e internacionais sobre o corporate e-learning, tendo sido contactado
o Professor Wim Veen da Delft University na Holanda, um dos oradores da eLearning
Lisboa 07 EU Conference - Delivering on the Lisbon Agenda. O trabalho desenvolvido
na rea do e-learning pelo Professor Wim Veen incontornvel e, por essa razo, foi
convidado a dar uma entrevista via Skype sobre o seu parecer relativamente ao e-learning
em contexto organizacional.
Segue, abaixo, a apresentao do Professor Wim Veen e do seu trabalho, bem como, o
registo da entrevista realizada no dia 21 de Maio de 2009.
Contact information
E-mail: w.veen@tudelft.nl
Phone: +31 (0) 15 27 84 108
Cell phone: +31 (0) 62 24 40 108
Skype: Wimveen1946
TBM Room number: b1.370
Background
Masters in Human Geography; PhD in Education
Wim Veen is a full professor at Delft University of Technology. His field is Education and
Technology. His research activities focus on the development of new learning concepts for
formal and informal learning. Corporate learning is a major focus and together with a team
of researchers he contributes to the development of new e-services for learning in
organizations where new learning needs are emerging. He takes a particular interest in the
net generation, its cyber culture, and the parallel development of new software, giving
insights into future learning cultures which will fundamentally change traditional teaching
and the roles of all stakeholders in the education field.
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Expertise
Corporate learning
E-learning
Social software
E-pedagogy
Currently he is involved in:
Education: Classes and guest lectures.
Research: Research in new learning concepts; learning and cyber culture; networked
learning.
Consultancy: Keynote speaker at national and international conferences.
Projects
Title: Urway.nl
Involved parties/Companies: Verdonck, Klooster & Associates, ROC Leiden, Aventis,
Helicon Opleidingen, Kennisnet.
Involved members from EduTec: Wim Veen, Maartje van den Bogaard, Andy Man
Involved members from ICLON Leyden: Marja Verstelle
Involved members from VKA: Ellen Bulder
Project description: The Urway.nl project aims at delivering on demand learning for
children who have left the education system and who have not had the opportunity to
succeed in any other learning programme. The final goal of the project is to reintegrate
children in society as a citizen, learner and employee. The project provides online learning
on an individual basis through online coaching and mentoring. Experts help providing the
appropriate learning materials. The project is inspired from very positive results in a
similar project called NotSchool in UK.
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Project duration: 2006 - 2008
Type: Research
Title: Networked Learning
Involved parties/Companies: Delft University of Technology, IBM Nederland, University
of Leyden, University of Maastricht
Involved members from EduTec: Wim Veen, Pieter de Vries, Casper Veeningen
Student assistants involved from Delft University of Technology: Ralph Boeije, Danny
Sutjahjo, Joost van Uden, Vlad Vergu, Mehdi Chitcian, Dimos Mpekas
Involved members from Leyden University: Adriaan Norbert
Project description: The Project Networked Learning is a project initiated by Delft
University of Technology and IBM in the framework of the collaboration of both partners
started and signed 2004. Delft University and IBM have agreed to cooperate in various
fields of technology, one of which is the field of e-learning. As a first result of this
agreement both partners have started the project Networked Learning in February 2006.
The project is funded by the SURF Academic Network Organization. Additional partners
are the University of Leyden and University of Maastricht. All partners participate in
developing a proof of concept for networked learning and will trial this concept in a real
life situations both in the corporate and public sector.
Project duration: 2004-2008
Type: Research
Title: Sectorcommittee M&ICT Education (VZ)
Involved parties/Companies: Ministries of Education, Culture & Science and Economic
Affairs
Involved members from EduTec: Wim Veen
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Project description: The program Social Sectors and ICT plans to apply the use of
Computer Science to stimulate the four sectors of education, mobility, health care and
security.
One of the goals of the program is selecting initiatives that can be scaled up and which can
stimulate the innovation and economical growth of the sector. The ministry of Education
Culture and Science wants a program with a traceable and durable movement in education
with a broad result in corporations where the project is involved in. Professor Wim Veen,
one of the stem pictures of the educational rejuvenation in The Netherlands, is asked as the
chair leader of this commission.
Project duration: Dec 2005 - 2008
Type: Research
Title: Learning Braille in a digital world
Involved parties/Companies: Stichting Bartimus-Sonneheerdt
Involved members from EduTec: Wim Veen
Project description: Multimedia and technology are more and more important for the
interaction between people. People who are visually impaired should also benefit from this
when they are learning Braille. The quality of the Braille education is not questioned, but
there are opportunities to make the learning process more effective and to keep the students
motivated. This research has searched for a list of requirements for the development of a
new teaching method for acquiring the skills of reading Braille making use of electronic
devices. Thereby new insights in learning theory and use of media of young people should
not be neglected.
Type: Research
Title: Blend-XL: Finding a balance in blended learning with extra large student groups
Involved parties/Companies: EU SOCRATES/MINERVA
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Involved members from EduTec: Arnold Mhren,Wim Veen
Project description: The goal of the Blend-XL project is on improving the interaction
between lecturers and students and between students, when students are working in very
large groups. In European cooperation several education situations of cases are tested. The
project delivered several courses and scenarios where blended learning is applied and a
model, manual and tool kits were derived where the lecturers incorporated blended
learning in their lectures. Another result of the project is a Center of Expertise.
Website: Blend-XL
Type: Research
Title: Defining a learning theoretic framework
Involved parties/Companies: E-Merge
Involved members from EduTec: Fieke Roozen, Wim Veen
Project description: On the basis of a literature analysis and making use of the E-Merge
soundboard a discussion document is developed with the important theoretical insights on
the area of learning coupled with the challenges of higher education-institutes to deliver
more pro-active students with more interactive, digital education. On the basis of theories
and trends more concrete advice is done for a combined research and to start up a dialogue.
Project duration: September 2005 March 2006
Publications: Veen, W., & Roozen, F (2006). E-merge inzichten en vergezichten. Delft:
TU Delft. (TUD)
Type: Research
Publications
Veen, W (2006). Lernen in der Wissensgesellschaft. Der "Homo Zappiens" und der
Hochschulunterricht der knftigen Generationen. In Gespaltene Welt? (pp. 169-189).
Keulen: Bhlau VerlagGmbH & Cie.. (TUD)
137
Veen, W, & Vrakking, B (2006). Homo Zappiens Growing up in a digital age London:
Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. (TUD)
Veen, W, & Roozen, F (2006). E-merge inzichten en vergezichten. Delft: TU Delft. (TUD)
Veen, W (2006). "vertrouw op wat studenten kunnen". Interview: (2005, December 1).
(TUD)
Kolfschoten, GL, & Veen, W (2005). Tool Support for GSS session design In Ralph.H.
Spraghue (Ed.), Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on
System Sciences (pp. 1-10). Hawaii: IEEE Computer Society. (TUD)
Veen, W, & Jacobs, F.W (2005). Leren van jongeren. Utrecht: Surf. (TUD)
Veen, W (2005). Learning strategies of Homo Zappiens: Towards new learning
Arrangements. In Book of Abstracts (pp. 20-25). Berlijn: ICWE GmbH. (TUD)
Zanden, AHW van der, & Veen, W (2005). Knowledge that (co)Operates; The Credo of
the Dutch E-Merge Consortium for Uses of ICT in Higher Education. In onbekend (Ed.),
Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Management of Technology (pp. 1-
19). Wenen: IAMOT. (TUD)
Veen, W (12-01-2005). Ik klik dus ik besta. Didaktief, pp. 4-7. (TUD)
Sjoer, E, & Veen, W (2005). Active learning for net generation students. In E. de Graaff,
G.N. Saunders-Smits, & M.R. Nieweg (Eds.), Research and Practice of Active learning in
Engineering Education (pp. 143-149). Amsterdam: Pallas Publications, Amstedam
University Press. (TUD)
Veen, W (2005). 2020 Visions - Wim Veen's projection In Global Learning 2005 (pp. 1-6).
(TUD)
Veen, W (2004). Lesgeven aan Homo Zappiens: de stille onderwijsrevolutie. Bulletin,
8(32), 6-9. (TUD)
Zanden, AHW van der, & Veen, W (2004). Innovation in Higher Education; Demand-
driven or Market-pushed In Lorenzo Cantoni & Catherine McLoughlin (Eds.), Proceedings
of ED-MEDIA 2004 (pp. 194-201). ED-MEDIA. (TUD)
138
Zanden, AHW van der, & Veen, W (2004). Hypothetical Model for Change and Progress
of ICT in Education In Yasser, A. Hosni, Richard Smit & Tarek Halil (Eds.), New
Directions in Technology Management: Changing Collaboration Between Government,
Industry and University (pp. 1-15). IAMOT. (TUD)
Veen, W,Zanden, AHW van der, & Staalduinen, JP van (2004). Developing an Inter-
University Education Support Infrastructure: A Delphi Study for the E-Merge Consortium
In John Cook (Ed.), Blue Skies and pragmatism: learning technologies for the next decade
(pp. 211-229). Eynsham, Oxford: Information Press. (TUD)
Lockhorst, D, Admiraal, W, Pilot, A, & Veen, W (2004). Computer ondersteund
samenwerkend leren in de lerarenopleiding. In onbekend (Ed.), Proceedings ORD (pp. 1-
11). Utrecht: ORD. (TUD)
Pasman, GJ,Santema, SC, Toet, A, & Veen, W (2004). "Zap Lab", A Visual Environment
For Associative Information Retrieval of Learning Assets and ObjectsIn Lorenzo Cantoni
& Catherine Mcloughlin (Eds.), Proceedings of Ed-Media 2004 (pp. 1668-1676).
EdMedia. (TUD)
Zanden, AHW van der, & Veen, W (2003). Standardisation of the Information
Infrastructure at Delft University of Technology. In IAMOT 2003 Proceedings . (TUD)
Veen, W (2003). Lesgeven aan Homo Zappiens: de stille. Tinfon, 12(3), 99-101. (TUD)
Veen, W,Vries, P de, & Valkenburg, WF van(). E-learning in the Steel Industry, an
Organizational Challenge. In Proceedings online Educa Berlin 2003 (pp. 1-4). Berlijn,
Germany: ICWE Gmbd. (TUD)
Vries, P de, Veen, W, & Valkenburg, WF van(). Developing and Applying an Analysis
Framwork for Corporate E-learning. In Proceedings E-learn 2003 (pp. 1-8). Norfolk, VA
23514 USA: AACE. (TUD)
Veen, W (2003). A New Force for Change: Homo Zappiens. The Learning Citizen, 5-8.
(TUD)
139
Veen, W,Valkenburg, WF van,Santema, SC, & Genang, R (2002). The new generation
working force: the Homo Zappiens. In M Driscoll & TC Reeves (Eds.), E-learn 2002 (pp.
1093-1095). AACE. (TUD)
Interview script
After reading your article on 2020 visions regarding the Homo Zappiens generation and
the way they learn, we can anticipate that some delivery method needs will eventually
appear in an educational level and after in an organizational level.
1. When and how do you think that this educational and training delivery method
needs will start to be visible?
2. Considering the Homo Zappiens characteristics do you think that the corporate
classroom traditional training delivery will be out-of-date in the near future?
3. Do you think that delivery methods from e-learning 2.0, like chat rooms, discussion
boards, instant messaging, web conferencing, e-mail, blogs and wikis can be applicable in
the present organizational context? And in a future organizational context?
4. Will adopting delivery methods like e-learning 2.0 in organizations have any impact
in the human resources and training management? Namely in: skill gaps of employees,
managers and HR professionals; performance appraisals; organizational culture and change
management; motivation and productivity; training costs; attraction and retention of human
capital.
5. In your opinion what will be the future directions of corporate training?
Registo da entrevista realizada no dia 21 de Maio de 2009
Wim Veen Here we are finally. It is great to see you online. What are we going to do?
Should I find the issues we are suppose to discuss?
Joo Pereira Delgado I have here those issues
WM Can you send them? Send the file, you can do that within Skype.
140
JPD I saw your presentation in 2007 here in Lisbon and I was interested by your opinion
and the theme of my dissertation involves some of the concepts you presented then, the
Homo Zappiens concept.
WV How would you like to proceed? Would you like to discuss the five questions you
have in mind?
JPD I can ask you directly the questions, ok?
WV Yes, ok.
JPD One of the articles you wrote was the 2020 visions regarding the Homo Zappiens
generation and I can see that in the near future there will be some training delivery needs in
education and also in the organizational context. When do you think that this will start to
be visible?
WV It already starting now, I do see that, first of all, at the level of school leaders and
school managers there is a movement of thinking that students are learning differently and
that the traditional methods of lesson plans and fifty minutes timeslots are not appropriate
anymore to get pupils immersed in learning situations, they do realise that, but they have a
problem that teachers are afraid to not control the processes in their classes anymore, so
they have an educational change policy to be developed and implemented in their schools,
some of them have already achieved that and in my country, I could show you if ever you
would come this way, ten to fifteen schools that have radically changed their working
processes and teaching processes and the organization in the school, they have created new
functions, functions of teachers that are very good at, for example, watching the web and
finding new resources, others who are very strong in talking with students who need help
and others who are very good at organizing learning events within the schools that will not
take place within timeslots of fifty minutes, because all these schools have changed one of
the five major concepts of the traditional education system, these are, first of all, the fifty
minutes timeslots and then the standard year systems, that is to say that you shift from one
class to another with about thirty of your peers, so you go from first class, second class,
third class, etc, and that is a very traditional way of an industrialized approach of learning,
because no student is studying in the same way, each of us have different learning styles,
we know that from educational research, there are many ways of doing things and learning
things, still they organise our kids in groups of thirty to go through a procedure of year one
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to year two to year three as if they were equal, thats not the case and kids of today are so
well trained in getting services customized that is just not in face of that, school doesnt
provide customized learning, school is providing standard learning for an average student
and I think we do not have average students anymore they are accustomed to take services
differently, look at the music in the websites where you can organise your own radio
station, where you can organise your playlist, share your playlist with others, so you, as a
young child youre accustomed to deal with this content, to arrange the content to your
needs and to share it according to your personal needs and you get services from the web
that enables you to configure the content you would like to process and if you compare the
sites last.fm then you see what children are expecting from educational services, they
would like education similar to last.fm. The third traditional concept of our educational
system is standard curricula, which is also conflicting with the idea of customised services,
then we have standard diplomas, which is also stupid and we have also separated subjects,
whereas I think now math as much to do with languages and physics as much to do with
chemical, engineering, biology and all those areas of study. Well, all of these schools that I
know and there have been also creating these innovative schools in the northern part of
Europe, Scandinavia for example, all of them have reduced or changed one of this five
standard concepts within schools and at the level of values they have also changed a lot,
because if you are providing customised and flexible educational services to kids, you
should also rely on what I call trust, you have to trust your students that they are willing to
learn and interested to know things. That is also what I am doing in an online school that
Ive created, this urway.nl for dropouts, kids that have been dropping out the regular
education system, two or three times and are between fifteen and seventeen years old and
they are just sitting at home and nobody can get them back to school and then I come in
and say ok, here is a PC and an internet connection, Ill give you a printer and a digital
camera, so what would you like to learn? and kids are answering to us, in this
environment, what I want and start learning, they start learning Spanish, they start learning
math or history or whatever they would like to do and we guide them for one year
completely online, we never meet in face-to-face, only about three times a year when we
organize face-to-face workshops or we go out to a specific expedition or a concert or
something like that and people are free to come. We go with those kids somewhere, but
those are the only three occasions in one year, for the rest we are exclusively online and we
trust those kids in what they are willing to do and the evaluations of this online learning
facility, I can hardly speak of a school, it is not a school, we trust them a lot and when we
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come to the evaluation results they say, on our question do you like this facility? they
say yes, because nobody is mistrusting us. I think the current educational system is one
of mistrust.
JPD You are putting the learning responsibility in the students, right?
WV Yes, I think thats what we should do and thats also what we should do in
organisations where people work.
JPD Dont you think that a large number of people and students are just irresponsible and
they cant figure out what they need for themselves and need some type of guidance, in an
organisation from the human resources management and in schools from the teachers and
some type of superior council that draws some type of learning project or curricula that
they should go through? Because some kids and some people are just irresponsible, that
may be one opinion.
WV Yes, I agree that they need guidance, but guidance isnt in conflict with trust. We are
also guiding the children in the urway project but it is not a matter of mistrusting. I think
we have a huge amount of experience in giving trust to children in Maria Montessori
Schools, which is a worldwide phenomenon, you must have that kind of schools also in
Portugal and what we have come up with the experience, we know is that kids are
reasonable human beings that are able to tell you what they would like to do and, as a
teacher, you can explain if you want to do this, I could advise you to take this and that
resource and start doing this and that, so that is matter of guidance and if you get your
students in, finally, getting some kind of diploma to be able to go to a profession or
university or to a follow-up school they are very reasonable in accepting your guidance and
I think this is basic to schools in the future where you should think more of providing, I
wouldnt like to call it contracts but agreements with students on what they would like to
do and you as their teacher can show them if you want to do this how are we going to
make it in six years from now that you will get a diploma with which you can go to the
university and study physics and they understand the requirements, they understand that
they cant go to the university without having had a lot of exercises in physics and math,
theyre not stupid, so you should explain they should do this and that and if they get the
feeling you are behind them, instead of against them, I think you have a quite different
school. I have been so lucky to assist at a creation of a school in Oslo in Norway, where I
143
have been giving a course for school leaders, school leaders who wanted to innovate their
schools and we added this course to the University of Trondheim in Norway and one of the
school leaders decided to change completely her school and she decided to spend each day
on a specific field of study and she put together all the science subjects and she asked her
teachers lets say it is Monday morning and it is sciences day, what are you going to do?
As in Physics teacher, biology, math and chemistry. The four of you will prepare a day for
science learning. It is your duty and responsibility to do anything nice for students and we
will provide all students with laptops and wireless access to the internet and so they did,
this was a school for kids between sixteen and eighteen years old and they were preparing
their entrance to university and we heard that students were taking home their laptops
every night, not for just gaming and going on the internet, but for continuing learning with
their peers and that was completely new to the parents who started phoning to the school,
telling the school leader that what was happening was totally new, they saw that change in
their kids because instead of coming home and saying blughrrr, I have homework to do
blughrrrr the kids themselves started to work and they enjoyed it and so it is also in that
urway.nl facility that I manage, we have parents who are phoning to us and telling that
their kids have completely changed and instead of being bored of learning things, they
enjoy it and they talk to their parents what they have been doing in urway, they have been
communicating with the peer kids who are living at anyplace in my country, they only
know each other online most of the time. I think that we provide the structures for kids that
are like factories, that are compulsive procedures of how to go forward... you lose
motivation and there is one thing in education which is critical it is also motivation, trust
and motivation and are two ways to motivate people, you can motivate them externally by
saying if youre not going to do this you will have bad marks, thats external motivation
and another external motivation is giving small kind of exams every week, in my country,
on an average, kids have to prepare a small composition four times a week, four times a
week they are just preparing some kind of small exam, that is ridiculous, the only thing
they do to school is what they have to do, what they are obliged to do, well thats external
motivation and the other one is, as you understand, internal motivation, being motivated to
do things because you want to achieve a goal and you have to set your goals and then I go
back to the Homo Zappiens concept, the homo Zappiens is a guy that is gaming all the time
and in all those games they are accustomed to configure the game according to their needs
or wishes or whatever, so they are setting goals by themselves, in schools we do not, we
provide them with the goals instead of letting them formulate their own goals, let the child
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set his goals for this week and if it is too ambitious or if it is too small you can guide them
and help them in setting realistic goals and thats what a teacher should do, that is a
different approach from external motivating people and, moreover, look at this, most of our
schools are like in Portugal of course, kids are sitting in the classroom and listening all day
to teachers, lets look at a specific lesson, a lesson in history or geography or in math,
never mind, the teacher is in from of the classroom, what he is doing, he is explaining
content to pupils, what he is doing by explaining is categorising, structuring information,
analysing information, he is doing a lot of activities on content that in fact we call learning
- categorising, analysing, structuring these are all learning activities, so in fact in a
classroom a teacher in front of a classroom is explaining the content of his subject and the
one who is learning most is the teacher, instead of letting students do the same - so here is
a bunch of information, start on analysing it, try to find the structure of this information,
can you find out the way of thinking in this content? Could you categorize it? And give a
summary, could you explain to another what is meant in this text or in this exercises?
That is learning, but in most cases it is the teacher who is doing it. Thats silly to realise
and thats why teachers also are getting burned out, of course, in the age from forty to forty
five, they have been learning so much the same, every year, that they have stopped
learning and then they get burned out. There is no news anymore, they just restart the
program and here we are again with fourteen or fifteen or sixteen years old and I restart my
program thats very dull instead of helping each student with his personal learning
needs and helping and guiding him through his learning path. I think teaching is also
getting more interesting because resources are changing and there is no standard book that
is in use, in most of the schools in my country teachers are using standard textbooks year
after year, the same book, just one textbook in a classroom for math or history or German.
I can understand teachers who get mad at that work, I was a teacher for six years and then I
quit, I realised that I wouldnt learn anything anymore if I continued to be a teacher so I
would like to change education, not only because kids are changing and the future
organizations will change but also to save teachers lives that is such a dull profession if
you imagine that every year you are going to do the same things with these kids, it is like
to be at work in a factory.
JPD What do you think that this generation will be like in professions, in a job and in
organizations? What will be their training and learning needs?
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WV I think we will see a shift from a representative culture to a participative culture, the
members of an organization dont have to think anymore and it is the experts in the field
that will provide the knowledge and I think that will change, if Homo Zappiens and further
generations, because kids nowadays are progressing in using technology and also parents
do not stand behind, they are also using Skype, Twitter and etc... I think we will see a
swift, a change from a representative culture to a participative culture, that means that our
democracies will evolve towards to, what I call, adhocracies, adhocracy is an organization
of human beings, people that get together in the interest of specific topics, as redesigning
the centre of a city for example, which is already the case in several cities across the world,
for example times square in new York and if a city centre has to be redesigned where are
we going to put offices, shops, apartments and etc, there will be many people involved in
such procedures and decisions to make and there is no such platform or expert that will
exclusively design that, nor the politics, but many people will participate in such decisions
and currently Im involved in working with the Ministry of Planning, the Ministry of
Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Agriculture who do want to have different
relationships with the citizens in issues that are of national importance, in my country it is,
for example, important to decide if we are going to build higher dykes against the sea level
rising or if we are going to get back part of our country to the sea and create cities on water
and shifting part of our population to the eastern part of our country so that specific parts
of the western part can be only water again, these are, of course, very big decisions to
make and they will not be made over night but it is likely that, on such decisions, many
people in the future will participate on how we will go forward and you can also consider it
on a smaller scale like restructuring a city centre or, lets say, the building of a railway line,
high speed railway line to Amsterdam that has been done, till now, only by engineers and
experts, but within a population within a crowd there are also experts and we will be able
to organise these crowds of people who are informed and also capable of contributing to a
decision and the Ministries I just mentioned are prepared to include this kind of procedures
and decision making and thats a huge shift in how we are going to organize our country or
how we are going to take these decisions, no longer through democratic structures but
through adhocratic structures, thats a complete new concept, I call it adhocracies, the term
I didnt invent, it is not a developed concept, it is just a term till now, but I think this is the
way we will go, as people we will get more responsibility on their work and we will be
able to decide on our own professional development in companies and organizations, they
will apply the same attitudes in their daily life as a citizen and also what we are going to do
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with agriculture, if we are staying with agriculture or if we are going to do a national park
of it, these decisions will be normal for people to participate and thats also what we see
happening, I think the future is not far away, the future is already there, in small case
examples, like a flower that is just coming out of the ground and what we have to do is to
see that this flower is an important one. If you ask me do you think that this way of acting
and thinking of the Homo Zappiens will have effects in organizations? yes, I think it will
and I can give you one example, Im now starting to be involved in, one year ago I was in
Sweden and I done a lecture and in the audience there were people from IKEA, you know
the furniture shopper? And they phoned me a month ago they said weve heard you were
in Sweden last year and we would like to talk to you because we have many young people
coming in to our organization and we have installed a lot of programs of e-learning for
them and we provide them with many e-learning courses, that they can take independently
of time and place, but apparently, they arent interested, so I said well, that doesnt
surprise me at all because probably what you have been doing in your e-learning courses,
instead of writing textbooks you have been probably writing computer screens full of text
and so they said yes, in fact thats what we have been doing and thats not attractive to
young people and moreover we would like to give them responsibility in their work on a
day to day basis. I went to see it then, because IKEA has two training centres worldwide,
one in Sweden and the other is here in Delft, in the Netherlands and I asked them about
this responsibility thing and they said we have installed a culture of responsibility of
individual employees, of the work they do in the company and they are rather free to
decide, within the framework of their tasks, to take initiatives and, if it fails, to ask for
forgiveness, instead of ask to permission in advance, you ask for forgiveness afterwards it
seems nice to hear this and I said How does that work? and he gave several examples, at
different levels in the organization, of how far people may go in deciding what to do and I
asked the guy, he was a learning manager at a very high level, Do your boss know that
you are talking to me now? and he said no, and I said does he know what you would
like to do with in the future? Developing serious gaming for learning within the company,
creating 3D learning environments and he said No and I asked him When do you think
you will talk to your boss? Once we have a concrete plan? Including the budget? he said
Yes, including the budget and he will probably provide me with the funds or say ok, go
ahead and I will ask him how I will go on this way before reporting him? and probably
ask for his forgiveness or for a success (laughs) and I said Is this really the case? As you
work on day to day basis? he said yes, thats the culture in IKEA. It was the first
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company that I have ever met that was working like this and I think as IKEA has a lot of
young people now coming in, their workforce is below 30, I think that this is an example
of how things will be organized in the organizations and this is just one example, I come in
many insurance companies as well where people do realize that applies do not act as
former generations and thats why I talk to them that they should change the way they train
their staff and instead of training centres install a kind of a virtual learning centre, where
you can organize people around yourself ,in order to do a specific job you have to do in
your work and so create communities rather than following a training that is being
delivered by a trainer outside the office and when you come back to the Office, you have to
go back to business as usual and you forget all about it, so giving ownership on your own
learning path, giving ownership on your own professional development, that is where
organizations are now starting looking for how can we organize that? and my answer to
this please do not organize it, enable it, do not structure it, do not go step by step thats
the old way of thinking and doing things step by step is so dull to structure everything, just
enable it, provide them with the tools and the environment and then let it go, because
people are keen enough so see whom they have to talk, how they have to find information
and most of the information they can find it is not in databases, thats why knowledge
management is so useless to do, but it is in the heads of your colleagues and your peers that
be in within your company as well as beyond the walls of your building, people are acting
in virtual communities, so if you give the responsibility to them and say ok, here are the
tools, this is what you have to do in the job, find ways to do it even better than you did
before and then they get intrinsically motivated, so what we have to do, is prepare our
kids for this kind of organizations, because they are in a big problem now, I can give you
another example, this CO of Rabobank, maybe you have heard of that bank, I have been
talking to him lately and he was working before at an insurance company called Interpolis
and in his department, where he was working, they had to process the claims of clients, for
example there was a candle that had fallen on the table, the table had burned a little bit and
it had to be repaired or there was a storm and a branch of a tree had destroyed the windows
or whatever, small things around the house, so all those claims where submitted to the
insurance company and the clients asked for the repair of something and the money they
have spent and they had to provide all the invoices with that claim, those invoices where
checked by the insurance company and when it was approved the chief in charge had to
sign and another chief had to sign and then the money was transferred, so my CO had been
looking at this and he said in fact those people do not have any responsibility on this
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sighting how to go forward with such a claim? and he said we should give trust to his
clients and say just send a letter how much money you need, we do not want to see the
invoices anymore (laugh) and so he did and (laugh) they got the claims, of course without
invoices, and they were being paid and now the most interesting thing: before when people
had to hand in all the invoices as proof of the paid of the damages the average sum of the
claim was about 900 euros, ever since the clients were not obliged to hand in the invoices,
the average claim reduced to 600 euros and moreover my CO didnt need to involve a lot
of staff for controlling all those invoices, so he told me he was a winner on both sides, I
created trust with my clients and I didnt had to invest a lot on salaries of people in
company to control all those invoices and he told me another issue, because he is an
innovative manager of a big organization, he had a lot of people involved and employed in
this organization and many of them were women living rather far from the city where the
offices were and so he said What do you think about starting to do your work from home?
Instead of coming up in the traffic jam and being late and leaving home very early in order
to avoid the traffic jams, etc, why dont you work at home? so these women said ok,
thats a nice idea and they started working from home and those who were coming up to
the offices were rather upset and pretended people staying at home werent working that
hard as they were in the offices, so he said ok, lets do some survey and some research on
that, to find out if it is true what you pretend and, in that case, I will call back all the
women from home and they will start working in the office again (laughs) and they did the
research collaboratively and what they found out the contrary, people working in the office
were working less hours a day and less efficiently, with less results then those who were
working at home and then my CO said you see what you achieve when you give trust to
your employees, I trust those women who are at home working for me, I do not have to
control them, I know they are doing the work and if they know I trust them they will not
deceive me and I think this kind of procedures are crucial and it is this CO who told me
this in one of the interviews I had with him. The origin of the problems in organizations is
education, we train our kids for 18 years or more to be controlled day-by-day, you are
controlled to do your homework, you are controlled to do this and to do that and at the end
they come out of such an education system that they start to work in an organization and
they think the organization is the same as the school, so I think, in fact, we should imagine
how society will be organized as in future in order to know how we should prepare our
kids for that future and when we organise our schools as they are nowadays is about 150
years ago we had a clear picture of how future would look like, we knew that people are
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not going to work on farms and in agriculture that much but are going to factories in cities
where they are working for 10 hours and this work would be highly standardized and
completely planned by the plant managers, so the education we created in our schools were
a very good preparation for our industrial society and thats how we have organized it, our
schools are organised like factories, they are not prepared for learning, they are organised
for preparing people to be in organisations that are strictly controlled from the top
downwards like armies, with generals, colonels and sergeants (laughs).
JPD The future will be different?
WV What I see happening, like the guy I referred to at Rabobank, if this type of guys are
telling us that future will be different, I think these are people who are really working in
practice, Im working at a University, I can imagine things of the future for free as it has
any impact on my organization, in the university, but I gave two examples, Rabobank and
IKEA and I can give another one but it is starting in bigger organizations where people do
realise that you must give ownership to your employees regarding their own professional
development and regarding the organization of the work and if you do so your organization
is going to change.
JPD It is about trust in your employees as you said, right?
WV Yeah and the same as for schools, they are also human beings as kids so why we
should treat kids differently from adults (laughs)
JPD In the future there will be also other changes in the Human Resources and Training
Management, analysing your forecast for the future there will be a lot of changes.
WV Yeah, yeah, I think so, I think the e-learning that has been organised till now as been
a matter of substitutions mainly and it is going to be transformed rather than being
substituted, what we have done with the first e-learning approaches, it was computer-based
training for example, it was individually oriented, it still came from the idea that a learner,
learns individually alone on courses that we had in textbooks on paper before on the net
and we provided the individual learner with digital books, but still the e-learning process
was an individual process, you could learn independent from place and time but you were
learning alone at home, taking a course online and you submitted your work to a teacher
who was also online but in fact you did the same as if you were in a classroom where a
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teacher asks you to deliver a kind of project, so what I think now the next step will be is
that your learning needs will be triggered by the tasks you have to do in your organisation
or you want to do in your organization because homo zappiens wants to matter in the
organization, if they are just sent out to do things that the manager wants they are not
interested in that work, they want to contribute to the success of the company for example
and so imagine their own learning needs and then instead of creating huge databases
containing information, documents, articles and other resources, multimedia resources
whatever that I can access I think that will not do, because I will still need that lonely
learner and I need to give meaning to information and to imagine what it means to me in
the framework of my work and I think this giving meaning process to being triggered I
have to communicate with other people.
JPD So it is important to discuss it people and peers?
WV Exactly, exactly and that is what is happening most of the time when we learn, we
communicate and ideally in schools we should be doing this and we cannot do it if a
teacher is talking all the time in front of the classroom but in fact what is meant to happen
in classroom is communication, I ask the teacher I do not quite understand what you mean
by this or could you repeat it in a different way because I didnt understand well you
havent a chance to do that with 30 pupils in the classroom, because he is talking all the
time and you dont have time for submitting that question, but in fact it should be
organized like that and if a teacher cannot be accessed by 30 pupils at a time, 30 pupils
among them can communicate about the stuff and that is what is going to happen in
organizations, I can give an example from IBM, where I worked for two years, I saw a guy
who had to make a proposal to the Turkish Telecom, they needed a new national infra-
structure for telephone and they asked IBM, France Telecom and other big companies to
do propositions and so this guy had to write his proposal in four weeks time and he started
out finding people, colleagues to help him and, IBM is a big company, so he asked
worldwide within the IBM company for people who could help him to do so and with that
community of practice, I call that a community of practice, which consists only by six
people not more, he wrote that proposal and IBM won the bid, so they got the deal with the
Turkish Government and they were three times more expensive than the other companies,
so I asked the guy why did he think he won it, he said I think Ive won it because I
included a lot of people with different expertise, different views and rick array of IDs that
weve put in to the proposal and I think that was the most convincing so he created a
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community of practice for four weeks and then he made the bid, so think that to me this is
an example of how people learn within organizations, you have to learn related to what you
have to do in that company, so heavily work related and secondly you have to do it with
others, so our learning structure in organizations will more become systems who connect
people to each other rather than connect an individual to a database.
JPD There is a recent learning theory called connectivism
WV Yes, George Simmons, we know each other, we are good friends
JPD I have been reading about it and it is very interesting and surely involves the
learning technology and learning needs are also evolving.
WV Yeah, exactly. And thats exactly what I am referring to. We met several times,
George and I and the last time we saw each other it was in an online conference on
edmedia, do you know edmedia conference? If you google it you will find it, it is every
year and one year is at Europe and the other year is at the United States and they started
realizing, because I visited the last edmedia conference in Europe, it was last summer in
Vienna, Austria and it was really dreadful (laughs) there was a huge amount of workshops
that was attended by four, five or six people, so you prepare yourself for a workshop or
presentation of 30 minutes or 50 minutes and then you come in a small room and there are
four people ready to listen to you, thats ridiculous, thats not the way we should organise
it and I couldnt change that because the structure of the program was so well elaborated
that if I could find the room, which was difficult there, but thats not relevant, I was sure
that I was that specific person who was going to present but it was no way of finding
people who were interested in what I was saying and most of the time those six people that
were present, two of them were the next speakers of the workshop that was going to be
held there, so they were not coming because they were interested in that workshop, they
were just there already to be in time for the presentation afterwards and then I wrote an
evaluation to Gary Marks who was organising those large scale conferences and I
suggested him that the time of virtual conferences had come and that we should take
advantage of technologies to be able to meet each other online in a more customised way
than in face-to-face conferences, it is difficult for me in face-to-face conferences to find
people with the same interests for example, in an online conference I can, because you
subscribe, you put your profile or you refer to your facebook profile for example that is
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already on the web, in which you can present yourself as a guy being interested in e-
learning and etc and the project that you are working on and whatever so that I can pick out
with a search engine people with similar interests and then go to an online happening to get
together with them and thats what Gary Marks has organized last year and in the
beginning of this year I gave a presentation with powerpoint slides and all the guys who
were interested there were present in a chatroom like we are doing now, so from time to
time we are writing some words and in that presentation of 20 minutes there was a chat
going on what I have been saying and I could read at the same time I was presenting go
directly in to the comments that I saw passing by there and I saw a message from George
and then I just responded to him during my presentation, that was really nice and we had a
great event and afterwards of further discussions, we were spread worldwide and
nevertheless we had the feeling of being together more than in such stupid university
somewhere in the world where you go and you find four people listening to someone who
is not motivated to present.
JPD The technology for online collaboration is amazing like webinars, webcast and
webconferences and their functionalities are amazing and you can learn a lot with other
people.
WV Yeah, so we use very old fashion systems like Adobe Connect, it is not very
revolutionary but it works, works worldwide and it is stable, so it is like skype, it works
and everybody is going to use it. So also there you see that you have to enable people to
find each other, conferences have been also aids to do all that and they have grown bigger
and bigger they have become so impersonal and I cant simply find the people who I would
like to meet and do not know. I should go to a Conference in Portugal in the 17 of June but
I know Jay Cross, its in Faro, near Faro. I only know that because he is one of the keynote
speakers, so I thought that I would like to meet Jay, I subscribed and I sent an article there
and I will have the occasion of meeting my friend there but there are so many other people
there and I dont know them in advance so how could I get in contact with them? I cant, I
just have to wait for the chance to meet on a face-to-face conference whereas in a virtual
conference I can plan it much better.
JPD - There another question that is important, a lot of e-learning 2.0 tools like chatrooms,
discussions boards, instant messaging, webconference, e-mail, blogs, wikis are certainly
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very important in this connectivism theory. Do you think they will enter the corporate
training context?
WV Yes I do. Sure and I do see it already happen, for example in the Ministry of
Agriculture they already have installed blogs and wikis and in the National Tax
Organization for paying income tax and etc, they also work with blogs and wikis already, it
is already in many organizations it has been introduced and people are using but still there
is a slide of a problem here, elderly employees do not know how you can use it, so it is
mainly used younger people. That will be a matter of strategy of the organizations to let it
happen in way we let forcing older people to use it, but they should start to realise that if
they do not look at a blog or do not read a wiki they will not have the right information
anymore. In one year from now, next year all Dutch people will have to send in their tax
paying papers, declaring their income tax, will have to do that digitally.
JPD Thats a big step
WV - It will happen next year and no way in sending papers anymore, even my granny
(laughs) so it is a matter of deciding to do things that will create the future, I think this is a
very nice step of our tax organization, that they decided to have only digital submissions of
income tax, I have already do it for years now, but of course I was in the first 5% or 10%
of the population doing so but they have seen the advantage of it and the gains it means to
have all things digitally and you can manipulate and analyse much better that they now
decided to do so for the old population, every Dutch guy or girl have to submit his or her
tax income now by an online system.
JPD Here in Portugal it would be a problem because of the old people in the interior
without access to computers or internet.
WV Yeah, but you can see it happen here and I dont think it will take ten years for
France, Germany, England will follow, definitely it has so many advantages and thats why
I think we are living in a really interesting time where things are changing dramatically,
because if we are moving away from the paper based society into the digital society, you
see communication patterns and collaboration patterns change and information patterns
change and that will also change our minds. I think it is very appropriate be involved in a
decision of how we are going to organize the village I live in, Im not in a political party,
Im not interested in being a trade union organization whatsoever but I think its relevant
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that I could give my voice to something where we have to decide how restructure our
village for example, I can do it online and I think it is rather normal that there is a tunnel to
include the opinion of the citizens. in fact, the logical consequences of buying my books
online, configuring my playlist online, buying also my new refrigerator online, I did that
already years ago and I just was curious if it would work and it did (laughs), four days
afterwards it was a huge refrigerator in front of my door (laughs) delivered by an
organization I never met, I never saw and I just transferred the money, thats all and four
days later there was a new refrigerator (laughs) so it gives me the feeling of being in
control of things I want to achieve and if it applies to books and refrigerators and it will
also apply to my opinion on how we are going to organize our village, thats a logical
consequence and thats why kids, I think who are drown up in such a society are not
interested in old structures such as television stations, radio stations, newspapers, political
parties, they are not, because those are the structures from the past where there was a large
scarcity of information and information that was channelled by experts, the journalists
were the experts and they channelled the information to the consumer and thats how
television also is organised and radios, there were experts who were telling us the news...
what the hell do I know if it is true what they are telling there? How do I know that?
Because I can go to Aljazeera, I can go to BBC, I can go to whatever news station and find
information there and make up my own mind instead of just being dependant from one
source of information, so Im getting empowered by reducing the scarcity of information
and being empowered is reducing the scarcity of information, I can talk to many other
people because skyping one hour with you doesnt cost a dime and if my camera wouldnt
been broken we could see each other also (laughs), so I feel more and more empowered
and what we are going to reduce now is the reduction of presence and that will also be a
huge step in learning, because we come from an era where we learn individually by
reading books, by reading webpages with text and doing exercises on our own and etc
towards a situation where we are in communities, those communities can be online and we
can see each other in those windows and in the future you will be in my room or I will be
in your room as a hologram and well be sitting in chairs and well be talking and we will
know that we are just two holograms and that is also the next step of reduction of scarcity
of presence and we know that for learning social presence is really important, there is a lot
of literature on that and it says that if you have your guys doing, for example experiments
in virtual laboratories, this is a project Im involved now for undergraduates of physics and
engineer in universities, so if you let students do experiments in virtual labs and you let
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them do it alone, they get demotivated, if you let them work in those experiments
collaboratively in a group of two or three or whatever as they like to connect or whatever,
we are going to organize it within wonderland, it is comparable to second life but more
organized, so we want to organize those experiments in virtual labs within wonderland in
order to give the feeling of social presence and in wonderland you will be represented by
an avatar and each of us will have avatars and we will have our students communicating
there about the experiments from literature suppose to know the learning effects will be
much more intense than before so this is the last developings we are going to because
distance is really a problem, we do now reduce the feeling of presence via the webcams as
we currently doing now with Skype but if ever we could be in the same place and you put
your spectacles and I put also spectacles with a special software in it then we can agree on
the environment where we are and this is called augmented reality and we can decide ok,
lets be in an office environment such as your room or where you are now and then we can
see each other through our spectacles thats one way or the other I already mentioned by
creating holograms thats the step after augmented reality. Its already possible, did you
ever see the holograms? My minister president has been a hologram in a television
program some months ago and he was sitting in a chair, in fact he wasnt there in the
studio and the interviewer interviewed him and they had a real chat together a real
interview but the interviewer was a real person sitting in a chair and the minister president
was only an hologram transferred from somo other studio somewhere (laughs) and that is
going to be developed in the next ten years of course and it will be finally a commodity
good like we are now using webcams.
JPD It is really amazing
WV Thats why I think that learning will change so much, if we are able to pop up like
an hologram in each other offices, then we can work together as if we were present. It
already exists, it isnt imagination, it really exists already, so the only thing we have to do
is make it affordable for you and me to buy it in a shop. Did you ever find NIA OCZ, its a
toy that you can buy for 120 euros, its a band that you put on your head, you connect it to
a small device and the small device you connect it to your computer and then you start
playing a videogame and you not have to touch your keyboard anymore because your brain
waves will be transmitted from that band on your head to the computer and you will see
your avatar go to the right if you think you should go to the right now, it is only 120 euros,
it is already available.
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JPD Have you tried it?
WV Yes
JPD And it works?
WV Yeah, you have to train for a little bit.
JPD Professor, I think we have discussed all the topics planned for the interview; it was a
pleasure to meet you and to hear your insights in learning and education which will sure
improve my dissertation. I would like to thank you for your time and for the excellent
insight you brought up in the subject.
WV You are welcome and if you ever think of translating the dissertation to English and
publishing it please tell me that I will surely buy it.
JPD If I do that I will surely offer you one copy. Thanks very much.