¿Pueden los MOOC cerrar la brecha de oportunidades?: La contribución del diseño pedagógico social inclusivo

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are open courses made available online at no cost to the user and designed to scale up, allowing for a large number of participants. As such, they are a disruptive new development which has the potential to widen access to higher education since they contribute to social inclusion, the dissemination of knowledge and pedagogical innovation. However, assuring quality learning opportunities to all cannot be simply reduced to allowing free access to higher education. On the contrary, it implies assuring equitable opportunities for every participant to succeed in their learning experience. This goal depends on the quality of the learning design. To be successful, a massive open online learning experience has to empower learners and to facilitate a networked learning environment. In fact, MOOCs are designed to serve a high heterogeneity of profiles, with many differences regarding learning needs and preferences, prior knowledge, contexts of participation and diversity of online platforms. Personalization can play a key role in this process. In this article, the authors describe the iMOOC pedagogical model and its later derivative, the sMOOC model, and explain how they contributed to the introduction of the principles of diversity and learner equity to MOOC design, allowing for a clear differentiation of learning paths and also of virtual environments, while empowering participants to succeed in their learning experiences. Using a design-based research approach, a comparative analysis of two course iterations each representing each model is also presented and discussed.Los cursos en línea abiertos y masivos (MOOC) son cursos abiertos disponibles en línea sin costo para el usuario y diseñados para ampliarse, permitiendo un gran número de participantes. Como tales, son un nuevo desarrollo disruptivo que tiene el potencial de ampliar el acceso a la educación superior, ya que contribuyen a la inclusión social, la difusión del conocimiento y la innovación pedagógica. Sin embargo, garantizar oportunidades de aprendizaje de calidad para todos no puede reducirse simplemente a permitir el acceso gratuito a la educación superior. Por el contrario, implica asegurar oportunidades equitativas para que cada participante tenga éxito en su experiencia de aprendizaje. Este objetivo depende de la calidad del diseño de aprendizaje. Para tener éxito, una experiencia de aprendizaje en línea abierta y masiva debe empoderar a los alumnos y facilitar un entorno de aprendizaje en red. De hecho, los MOOC están diseñados para servir a una gran heterogeneidad de perfiles, con muchas diferencias con respecto a las necesidades y preferencias de aprendizaje, conocimiento previo, contextos de participación y diversidad de plataformas en línea. La personalización puede jugar un papel clave en este proceso. En este artículo, los autores describen el modelo pedagógico iMOOC y su derivada posterior, el modelo sMOOC, y explican cómo contribuyeron a la introducción de los principios de diversidad y equidad en el diseño MOOC, lo que permite una clara diferenciación de las rutas de aprendizaje y también de entornos virtuales, al tiempo que permite a los participantes tener éxito en sus experiencias de aprendizaje. Usando un enfoque de design-based research, también se presenta y discute un análisis comparativo de dos iteraciones del curso, cada una representando cada modelo

Partners in Business

In Zambezia in the second half of the nineteenth century, the development of the trade in export commodities involved all sectors of the social and economic system, and was largely a response to external stimuli. During this period, the Indian traders reinforced their key role in the inland trade, connecting the peasant producers to the European trade firms that controlled the export trade. By the late 1880s, the colonial state sought to create an infrastructure that would protect and promote Portuguese interests through the ensuing of a new legal and judicial system in the 1890s, and the establishment of a plantation system in Zambezia. Such implied the organization and control of trade, and labour and, consequently, the reduction of both Indian and peasant autonomy. Faced with the rapid growth of the colonial companies’ trade monopoly, Indians responded positively to the new economic challenges, establishing new partnerships and cooperating with the companies.The latter used them as means to achieve territorial and trade control over the prazos. Indeed, the fears of loss of control over the Africans, which represented a deficit in terms of taxation and labour obligations, prompted the establishment of a commercial alliance with the Indians. This suggests that the establishment of both effective colonial rule and modern capitalist enterprise was dependent to a degree upon an Indian-dominated trade network.En Zambézie, au cours de la seconde moitié du dix-neuvième siècle, le développement du commerce d’exportation des marchandises a impliqué tous les secteurs du système économique et social, et constituait en grande partie une réponse à un stimulus externe. Pendant cette période, les marchands indiens ont renforcé leur rôle fondamental dans le commerce intérieur, faisant le lien entre les producteurs paysans et les sociétés commerciales européennes qui contrôlaient les exportations. Dès la fin des années 1880, l’État colonial a voulu créer une infrastructure qui assurerait la protection et la promotion des intérêts portugais à travers la mise en place d’un nouveau système légal et judiciaire dans les années 1890, et l’établissement d’un système de plantations en Zambézie. Ceci impliquait l’organisation et le contrôle du commerce et du travail et, par conséquent, la réduction de l’autonomie tant indienne que paysanne. Confrontés au développement rapide du monopole commercial des compagnies coloniales, les Indiens ont répondu de façon positive aux nouveaux défis économiques, en établissant de nouveaux partenariats et en coopérant avec les compagnies.Ces dernières les utilisaient comme un moyen d’obtenir un contrôle territorial et commercial sur les prazos. En effet, la peur de perdre le contrôle sur les Africains, ce qui aurait représenté un manque à gagner, tant en termes de taxes que de travail obligatoire, a été à l’origine de l’établissement d’une alliance commerciale avec les Indiens. Ceci suggère l’idée que l’établissement à la fois d’un gouvernement colonial efficace et d’une entreprise capitaliste moderne dépendaient jusqu’à un certain point d’un réseau commercial dominé par les Indiens.Na Zambézia, na segunda metade do século dezanove, o desenvolvimento do comércio de exportação de mercadorias envolveu todos os sectores do sistema social e económico, e constituíu em grande parte uma resposta aos estímulos externos. Durante este período, os comerciantes indianos reforçaram o seu papel fundamental no comércio interior, estabelecendo uma ligação entre os produtores camponeses e as sociedades comerciais europeias que controlavam as exportações. A partir do final da década de 1880, o Estado colonial desejou criar uma infra-estrutura que asseguraria a promoção e a protecção dos interesses portugueses através da implementação de um novo sistema legal e judiciário na década de 1890, e o estabelecimento de um sistema de plantações na Zambézia. Isto implicava a organização e o controlo do comércio e do trabalho e, consequentemente, a redução da autonomia tanto indiana como camponesa. Confrontados ao rápido desenvolvimento do monopólio comercial das companhias coloniais, os Indianos responderam de maneira positiva aos novos desafios económicos, com o estabelecimento de novas parcerias e a cooperação com as companhias.Este estado usou-os como um meio para alcançar um controlo territorial e comercial sobre os prazos. Aliás, os receios da perda de controle sobre os Africanos, que representavam um défice em termos de tributação e obrigações laborais, levou à assinatura de um pacto comercial com os Indianos. O facto sugere que o estabelecimento tanto de um governo colonial eficaz, como do empreendedorismo capitalista moderno se encontravam, em certa medida, dependentes de uma rede comercial dominada pelos Indianos

Energy and Chronopolitical Allegory

Around the mid-nineteenth century, what had hitherto been described as a multiplicity of physical forces was unified under the novel concept of energy. Working in tandem with and under the aegis of the transition to fossil fuel consumption, this reduction of multiple forces to one single unifying concept also entailed the suggestion that turning the compressed time of fossil deposits into the accelerated time of propulsion engines was not simply an economic but a moral imperative. Mobilizing the physical world on behalf of imperial policy, Victorian physics also helped intensify already ongoing processes of racialization. The talk will survey the ways through which language worlds, or unworlds, by detailing the usages of reduction, conflation, equivocation, and allegory, in and beyond the natural sciences. Ana Teixeira Pinto is a writer and cultural theorist based in Berlin. She is a guest professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg (AdBK) and a theory tutor at the Dutch Art Institute. Her writings have appeared in publications such as Third Text, Afterall, e-flux journal, Manifesta Journal, and Texte zur Kunst. She is the editor of a forthcoming book series on the antipolitical turn to be published by Sternberg Press. Together with Kader Attia and Anselm Franke, she is organizing the conference and podcast series The White West: Whose Universal, taking place at HKW Berlin, and she is a member of the 2022 Berlin Biennial artistic team.Ana Teixeira Pinto, Energy and Chronopolitical Allegory, lecture, ICI Berlin, 22 February 2022, video recording, mp4, 48:55 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e220222

"Socialization of the countryside" and its consequences for agricultural production in Manica district - Mozambique, 1975-1987

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters by Coursework and Research Report in the Department of History, the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, JohannesburgThis study analyzes the “socialization of the countryside” and its consequences for agricultural production in Manica district during the postcolonial period from 1975 until 1987. The impact of this policy, developed by FRELIMO as guerrilla movement during the struggle of liberation of Mozambique (1964-1974) and as FRELIMO government from 1975 until 1987, has been analyzed here in historical perspective. During the struggle in liberated zones, FRELIMO along with the rural African population developed a collective form of production inspired by African socialism developed by President Julius Nyerere in Tanzania. FRELIMO’s new policy was implemented in whole country after independence in 1975, through the creation of the state companies, communal villages, and cooperatives of production between 1976 and 1987. This policy was implemented in the countryside without having the rural experience necessary to inform its functioning. Additionally, the weakness of human resources in its management of the policy further undermined its success. Furthermore, the war led by RRENAMO from 1976 until its end in 1992 weakened the state’s resolve. These three factors became the basic causes of the policy’s abandonment in 1983, and its replaced by the neo-liberal economic adjustment policy in 1987.MT201

Criticality and its effect on other cortical phenomena

Neuronal avalanches are a cortical phenomenon defined by bursts of neuronal firing encapsulated by periods of quiescence. It has been found both in vivo and in vitro that neuronal avalanches follow a power law distribution which is indicative of the system being within or near a critical state. A system is critical if it is poised between order and disorder with the possibility of minor event leading to a large chain reaction. This is also observed by the system exhibiting a diverging correlation length between its components as it approaches the critical point. It has been shown that neuronal criticality is a scale-free phenomenon observed throughout the entire system as well as within each module of the system. At a small scale, neuronal networks produce avalanches which conform to power law-like distributions. At a larger scale, we observe that these systems consist of modules exhibiting long-range temporal correlations identifiable via Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA). This phenomenon is hypothesised to affect network behaviour with regards to information processing, information storage, computational power, and stability - The Criticality Hypothesis. This thesis attempts to better understand critical neuronal networks and how criticality may link with other neuronal phenomena. This work begins by investigating the interplay of network connectivity, synaptic plasticity, and criticality. Using different network construction algorithms, the thesis demonstrates that Hebbian learning and Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP) robustly drive small networks towards a critical state. Moreover the thesis shows that, while the initial distribution of synaptic weights plays a significant role in attaining criticality, the network's topology at the modular level has little or no impact. Using an expanded eight-module oscillatory spiking neural network the thesis then shows the link between the different critical markers we use when attempting to observe critical behaviour at different scales. The findings demonstrate that modules exhibiting power law-like behaviour also demonstrate long-range temporal correlations throughout the system. Furthermore, we show that when modules no longer exhibit power law-like behaviour we find that they become uncorrelated or noisy. This shows a correlation between power law-like behaviour observed within each module and the long-range temporal correlations between the modules. The thesis concludes by demonstrating how criticality may be linked with other related phenomena, namely metastability and dynamical complexity. Metastability is a global property of neuronal populations that migrate between attractor-like states. Metastability can be quantified by the variance of synchrony, a measure that has been hypothesised to capture the varying influence neuronal populations have over one another and the system as a whole. The thesis shows a correlation between critical behaviour and metastability where the latter is most reliably maximised only when the former is near the critical state. This conclusion is expected as metastability, similarly to criticality reflects the interplay between the integrating and segregating tendencies of the system components. Agreeing with previous findings this suggests that metastable dynamics may be another marker of critical behaviour. A neural system is said to exhibit dynamical complexity if a balance of integrated and segregated activity occurs within the system. A common attribute of critical systems is a balance between excitation and inhibition. The final part of the thesis attempts to understand how criticality may be linked with dynamical complexity. This work shows a possible connection between these phenomena providing a foundation for further analysis. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the significant role criticality plays in determining the behaviour of neuronal networks.Open Acces

Destination certification on sustainable tourism : the managers perspective

The world is changing rapidly and sustainability is being one of the main drivers of change. The tourism industry is no exception and its players are also modifying their patterns and behaviours in order to become more sustainable. The certification of whole destinations as sustainable tourism destinations is a relatively new process which goes beyond the current practice of certifying individual tourism businesses. There are a relatively small number of certified destinations worldwide. As this phenomenon is on an early stage, there is an opportunity for studying pre and post destination certification experience for the destination and visitors. This research will focus on the destination experience and its aim is to investigate the perspective of destination managers on these certification programs. Its objectives include collecting information on the reason(s) why destination managers decided to apply for a certification program and which were their initial expectations; investigating the consequences of joining such program; and understanding destinations managers’ perception on the future of their participation in the certification program. It was important to proceed with a literature review to gather information on topics related to this subject in order to better understand what was already being written, enabling for an understanding of research gaps that led to the chosen research objectives. To achieve the desired results, the chosen methodology to carry out this research was to conduct interviews to different destination managers whose destinations are participating in a certification program. The main findings show several different reasons for destinations deciding to join as well as distinct initial expectations by their managers but they also demonstrate a positive perception towards certification programs and the desire to keep relying on them to improve their results and to continue their sustainability path.O mundo está a mudar rapidamente e a sustentabilidade está a ser um dos principais motores da mudança. A indústria do turismo não é exceção e os seus agentes estão, também eles, a modificar os seus padrões e comportamentos de modo a tornarem-se mais sustentáveis. A certificação de destinos como um todo, classificando-os como destinos turísticos sustentáveis é um processo relativamente novo que vai além da prática atual de certificação de empresas de turismo. Há um número relativamente pequeno de destinos certificados em todo o mundo. Como este fenómeno está numa fase inicial, há uma oportunidade de estudar a experiência do pré e pós-certificação para o destino e os seus visitantes. Esta investigação centrar-se-á na experiência do destino e o seu objectivo é investigar a perspetiva dos gestores do destino sobre estes programas de certificação. Os seus objectivos incluem a recolha de informação sobre a(s) razão(ões) pela qual os gestores de destino decidiram candidatar-se a um programa de certificação e quais foram as suas expectativas iniciais; investigar as consequências da adesão a esse programa; e compreender a perceção dos gestores de destino sobre o futuro da sua participação no programa de certificação. Era importante proceder a uma revisão bibliográfica para recolher informações sobre temas relacionados com este assunto, a fim de melhor compreender o que já estava a ser escrito, permitindo, assim, uma compreensão das lacunas de investigação, que levaram aos objectivos de investigação escolhidos. Para alcançar os resultados desejados, a metodologia escolhida para realizar esta pesquisa foi a realização de entrevistas a diferentes gestores, cujos destinos estão a participar num programa de certificação. O mundo está a mudar rapidamente e a sustentabilidade está a ser um dos principais motores da mudança. A indústria do turismo não é exceção e os seus agentes estão, também eles, a modificar os seus padrões e comportamentos de modo a tornarem-se mais sustentáveis. A certificação de destinos como um todo, classificando-os como destinos turísticos sustentáveis é um processo relativamente novo que vai além da prática atual de certificação de empresas de turismo. Há um número relativamente pequeno de destinos certificados em todo o mundo. Como este fenómeno está numa fase inicial, há uma oportunidade de estudar a experiência do pré e pós-certificação para o destino e os seus visitantes. Esta investigação centrar-se-á na experiência do destino e o seu objectivo é investigar a perspetiva dos gestores do destino sobre estes programas de certificação. Os seus objectivos incluem a recolha de informação sobre a(s) razão(ões) pela qual os gestores de destino decidiram candidatar-se a um programa de certificação e quais foram as suas expectativas iniciais; investigar as consequências da adesão a esse programa; e compreender a perceção dos gestores de destino sobre o futuro da sua participação no programa de certificação. Era importante proceder a uma revisão bibliográfica para recolher informações sobre temas relacionados com este assunto, a fim de melhor compreender o que já estava a ser escrito, permitindo, assim, uma compreensão das lacunas de investigação, que levaram aos objectivos de investigação escolhidos. Para alcançar os resultados desejados, a metodologia escolhida para realizar esta pesquisa foi a realização de entrevistas a diferentes gestores, cujos destinos estão a participar num programa de certificação