CYBERBULLING AND REAL REALITY

There are various risks tied to cyberspace. Some of them are social risks because they are cultural risks, being related to new forms of relationships and interactions among people. In the last decade, toxic evils like cyberbullying and other malicious cyber violence are growing, and the search of antidotes is becoming a common concern for governments, educational authorities, teachers, parents and children alike. The available data shows clear evidence that the number of persons affected by cyber violence is increasing (Shariff e Churchill, 2009; U.S. Department of Education, 2011; Dilmac, 2012; Catalano, 2012): a Google search of the word “cyberbullying” finds more the 11 million of items. Despite the popularity of the word, there is a limited knowledge of this issue and many of the first conceptual formulations about it continue to be spread in literature, such as that the characteristics of bullies who act face-to-face and those who do so in cyberspace are very different. The paper analyzes the classic model of cyberbullying behavior, as described in literature, introducing a new element to be considered. It is that, especially for young people, Web and physical world are more and more becoming a whole: virtual-web and real reality are a continuum that we could define as an e-real-reality. Analyzing two of the most known cases of cyberbullying and considering some other evidences emerged by recent researches, we are theoretically convinced that a better understanding of this element could lead to the development of more effective strategies for combating cyberbullying

LEARNING ACHIEVEMENT IN STEM SUBJECT: COMMONALITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN LATVIA AND FINLAND A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Education is a never ending learning process. Learning achievement in STEM is the academic disciplines of science technology engineering and mathematics. This article reports a study on the impact of learning achievement in STEM subject in Latvia and Finland. This report bring collection of knowledge and information from other writers and OECD. Learning achievement is the result of an activity that has been done, created both individually and in groups- education. Active learning increases student performance in STEM subjects (Science, Technologies, Engineering, and Mathematics). The basic qualification for school teachers in Finland is the master´s degree and in Latvia the basic or minimum qualification for teaching needed to have at least bachelors’ degree and teaching certificate. Research evidence shows that performance in Latvia was slightly below the OECD average in STEM subjects. The impact of socio-economic factors as student’s performance must be taken into account with comparative studies both in Finland and Latvia, and how Latvia and Finlandachieve their expected goals?The theoretical study is trying to investigate the reasons of differences in learning achievement in Latvian and Finnish schools; also what influences learners success and achievement in mathematics and science. It is important from a pedagogical point of view to provide student with relevant practical and theoretical information and to promote their knowledge.

ADULT LEARNING AND SOCIALIZATION PROCESSES: RTA EXPERIENCE

ERASMUS+ Strategic Partnership project Adult Self-Learning: Supporting Autonomy in a Technology-Mediated Environment/ ASL (Ref. No. 2019-1-TR01-KA204-076875) co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme, Key Action 2: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices – Strategic Partnerships for adult education. The project aims at teaching learners to acquire new skills and competences using learning innovative practices and digital technologies as well as developing a functioning collaborative learning environment to help them identify skills gaps and needs and to collaborate locally and independently for joint capacity-building. The ASL project is expected to produce three main results corresponding to three primary European priorities:1. Supporting the setting up of, and access to, up skilling pathways (priority: adult lifelong learning);2. Improving and extending the supply of high quality learning opportunities tailored to the needs of individual low-skilled or low-qualified adults (priority: social inclusion/further education opportunities);3. Open education and innovative practices in a digital era (priority: adults' professionalization/empowerment)

DOCTORAL STUDENT’S RESEARCH COMPETENCE

Uncertainties in conceptualizations of research skills and competences draw heavily on the changing process of the development of these qualities in education and the relative importance of employment at different education levels that follow the completed by students programs; these also have to meet the uncertainties in competence structure and development. While the shift to competence approach in education is thus more complex than many accounts suggest, it does have major implications for important aspects of studies and teacher and educator work. These include: skill and competence definitions, structure, developmental dynamic and kinds of activities that ensure a stage-by-stage enhancement of these qualities. Research is among the most complicated activities at universities that students and educators have to cover; doctoral studies and the acquired competences are of a special concern. The aim of this article is to trace different approaches and classifications of the 21st Century competences, define research skills and researcher competence, as well as to provide a structure and development of a doctoral student’s competence in the area of education inquiry

THE DIGITAL GENDER DIVIDE: AN OVERVIEW

It has been observed that women, especially in developing countries, have significantly lower technology participation rates than men. This is generally considered to be the result of socio-cultural attitudes related to the expected role of women in society. The consequence is the low percentage of women working in the high-tech industry. However, nowadays, women make ample use of internet technology and access social media just as much as men.This article will explore the issue of the digital gender divide, focusing on which factors can impede and/or facilitate access to and use of digital technologies.  It represents the preliminary results of an ongoing research conducted within a bilateral project entitled “Gender aspects of digital readiness and development of human capital” that involves the Latgalian region in Latvia and the Ternopil region in Ukraine, two regions that share similar socio-economic problems.The aim of the research is to increase the level of women’s inclusion in the labor market of the future, which itappears will be increasingly dominated by digital technologies. From this perspective, reducing the digital divide is crucial, but alternative forms of digital education will need to be introducedin order to facilitate the acquisition of digital competences. 

Delivering Social Telerehabilitation Services

Telerehabilitation is an emerging method of delivering rehabilitation services, which uses information and communication technologies to minimize distance and time barriers. Telerehabilitation is often considered a specialization of the wide field of tele-medicine; most of telerehabilitation services fall into three categories: clinical assessment (patient’s functional abilities in his or her environment), diagnosis and clinical therapy. Researches have recently underlined the potential of social media, mobile phones, and the Internet in general for improving mental health, supporting positive outcomes on addiction issues, sexual health, and homelessness.This paper analyses the issues and implications tied to the development of social telerehabilitation services in Latvia, and reports on the first step of National science program VPP INOSOCTEREHI, a new three years multidisciplinary project on social rehabilitation, which is conducted by four Latvian Universities, and focuses on the use of mobile technologies in rehabilitation scope.

NURSES EDUCATION AND SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS IN MEDICAL COLLEGE IN EMERGENCY SITUATION

Transformation of medical education in Latvia is connected to new requirements which are focused on developing complex competences that have become especially important in specific and health threatening conditions of Covid-19 global pandemic. Qualitative use of specific and transversal competences is necessary for more complicated and autonomous dimensions of the nurses’ responsibilities. Uniting of the existing 2nd level of the professional education with the 1st level of higher education into common higher medical education frame is planned in order to make nurses’ certification easier, to improve employment, mobility and adaptability to the unexpected conditions as, for the example, the present emergency pandemic situation. The study in the doctoral thesis frame reveals that improvement of acquisition of the competences can be promoted by transforming educational documents and focusing on practice-based environment

INFLUENCE OF INTERNATIONALIZATION PROCESSES IN THE HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE

Since integration and globalization processes are accelerating in the world, the demand to internationalize education and studies increases as well as parameters of the activities of higher education institutions change. International competitive ability of European higher education area, international mobility and high level of university graduates’ employment as well as successful integration into international labour market are the main aims of Bologna process. Bologna declaration, various documents of conventions (European convention of higher education institutions, Salamanca) and communiqué documents (of Prague; Berlin; Bergen) related to the declaration devoted to the creation of common European Higher Education Area raise the necessity of higher education policy emphasizing internationalization, the conception of lifelong learning. The documents mentioned above emphasize the development of European dimensions and content internationalization in study programmes, training of a flexible, mobile, constantly improving and public active specialist who will integrate into the competitive labour market, mobility of the academic community and international cooperation. The development of intercultural competence becomes a more topical subject of the research taking globalization processes into consideration. That is why it is important to understand the influence of internationalization processes in the institution on the development of Master’s degree (MA) students’ intercultural competence through their experience gained in the study process. The aim of the research presented in this article is to discuss the influence of internationalization processes in the institution on the development of MA students’ intercultural competence. A scientific problem question raised in the research is how MA students telling their life story reveal the experience gained in the process of higher education internationalization which influenced the development of their intercultural competence

Some Reflections on Designing Effective Social Telerehabilitation Services for Older Adults

The share of the population aged 65 years and over is increasing in every EU Member State, candidate country, and EFTA Member State. WHO/Europe has established a Subnetwork on Healthy Ageing within the European Healthy Cities Network and provides guidance to Member States in developing profiles of healthy ageing, since, given the increasing number of older adults, maintaining their health status is a crucial issue.  This article, which is part of the Latvian national scientific program VPP INOSOCTEREHI, focuses on the issues related to the design, implementation, and assessment of user interfaces that can maximize usability in social telerehabilitation systems for older adult users. This is a very real challenge, since older adults don’t form a homogeneous class. Investigating older adults’ skills and their attitudes towards the perceived usefulness of computer applications could be helpful in identifying some sub-sets of older adult users and their typical behaviours

DEVELOPING PRACTICES FOR ADULT EDUCATORS ’ EVALUATION

In recent years, there have been significant changes in the field of adult education. These changes have brought new opportunities for adult educators, expanding the types of programs offered to adult learners. The increasing role and spreading of adult education has given rise to the issue of adult educators' evaluation, because of overarching goal of evaluation is to improve the quality of the work of an institution. This paper focuses on EduEval (Evaluation for the Professional Development of Adult Education Staff), an EU funded project which is grounded in an action-research based on the active involvement of practitioners engaged in adult educators’ evaluation. The project aims at investigating the issue of adult educators' evaluation in some European countries (which are: Latvia, Italy, Poland, Spain and Greece). Thus paper illustrates the project objectives, and reports from the scientific approach which is used by Personality Socialization Research Institute (PSRI) of Rezeknes Augstskola (Latvia) to conduct an explorative survey on evaluation practices in the specific scope of adult social educators