The central question in this study is how, for whom, and under which conditions professional youth work contributes to the personal development of socially vulnerable youngsters, the reinforcement of their social network, the enhancement of their social participation, and the timely finding of appropriate specialized care services in relation to contextual factors such as life events and the influence of significant others. This research used a multiple case study with a comparative design. During a 12-month period, youth workers (N = 20) participated in group intervision meetings and kept diaries reporting on their actions and the development of the youngsters (N = 23). An analysis of this data revealed four patterns of development of socially vulnerable youngsters in youth work settings. Each pattern consisted of a specific form of multi-methodic action that resulted in a specific outcome. The study also revealed how these processes of development are influenced by important life events and significant others. The findings suggest that youth work contributes to personal development and social participation and thereby may lessen the need for formal social care services.
Learning objects are bits of learning content. They may be reused 'as is' (simple reuse) or first be adapted to a learner's particular needs (flexible reuse). Reuse matters because it lowers the development costs of learning objects, flexible reuse matters because it allows one to address learners' needs in an affordable way. Flexible reuse is particularly important in the knowledge economy, where learners not only have very spefic demands but often also need to pay for their own further education. The technical problems to simple and flexible are rapidly being resolved in various learning technology standardisation bodies. This may suggest that a learning object economy, in which learning objects are freely exchanged, updated and adapted, is about to emerge. Such a belief, however, ignores the significant psychological, social and organizational barriers to reuse that still abound. An inventory of these problems is made and possible ways to overcome them are discussed.
This paper discusses two studies - the one in a business context, the other in a university context - carried out with expert educational designers. The studies aimed to determine the priorities experts claim to employ when designing competence-based learning environments. Designers in both contexts agree almost completely on principles they feel are important. Both groups emphasized that one should start a design enterprise from the needs of the learners, instead of the content structure of the learning domain. However, unlike business designers, university designers find it extremely important to consider alternative solutions during the whole design process. University designers also say that they focus more on project plan and desired characteristics of the instructional blueprint whereas business designers report being more client-oriented, stressing the importance of "buying in" the client early in the process.
