CONTINUED EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITY EXTENSION IN  TOXINOLOGY (PARTE I)

RUI SEABRA FERREIRA JUNIOR(1)

(1)Researcher from the Center for the Study of Venoms and Venomous Animals (CEVAP). São Paulo State University – UNESP

Who needs continued education?

For ends of this exposition, the concept of continued education is restricted the formal activities of teach-learning, offered for carrying people of heading of conclusion of a superior course, with exception of programs of Master and PhD degree. One observes that these activities can in such a way be offered by institutions of superior education as for other types of entities, such as supplying of systems and companies of consultoria. The participation of entities not-colleges student, occupies an increasing space in the environment of the continued education. A broad concept of continued education exists, where the requirement of the previous conclusion of superior course is not established. Even though universities come offering increasingly courses where this requirement is not necessary.

How to make possible programs of continued education?

It is the practical international that the accomplishment of programs of continued education is remunerated for the entity that offers them. This if applies not only to the cases where the ofertante is a private company, but also the entities without lucrative purpose, such as foundations and public institutions of superior education. In this last case, the resources proceeding from the governmental budget are primordially destined to cover the costs of the after-graduation and graduation courses.

CONTINUED EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITY EXTENSION IN  TOXINOLOGY (PARTE II)

RUI SEABRA FERREIRA JUNIOR(1)

(1)Researcher from the Center for the Study of Venoms and Venomous Animals (CEVAP). São Paulo State University – UNESP

How to make possible programs of continued education? (Cont…)

Exactly the costs of the accomplishment of basic research require arrive in port external of agencies such as the state foundations of support to the research, the CNPq or the FINEP. In this way, the accomplishment of activities of continued education must necessarily auto-be financed. It has some quarrel on the form to defray them, if for the cost delinquent or the total cost (that it implies, for example, in paying a tax for the use of the academic installations). The trend is to defray all the necessary insumos. On the other hand, it has that if to remember that price is different of cost, that is, a price that is adjusted to the power of purchase of the plaintiffs and to the value must be established who the course will add to the participant ones and its sponsors. An explosion of the long-distance teaching (LDT) is happening in Brazil and in the world. With the challenges of acting in a society where the information disseminates in a fast and globalized way, the new profile of the professional is to search for knowledge.

CONTINUED EDUCATION AND UNIVERSITY EXTENSION IN  TOXINOLOGY

(PARTE III)

RUI SEABRA FERREIRA JUNIOR(1)

Researcher from the Center for the Study of Venoms and Venomous Animals (CEVAP). São Paulo State University – UNESP

How to make possible programs of continued education? (Cont…)

This new educational paradigm, which privilege the learning and not the teaching anymore, and, finally, the necessity of fulfilling an increasing demand for the continuing teaching of Toxinology, leaded the Center for the Study of Venoms and Venomous Animals (CEVAP), from São Paulo State University (UNESP), to search for models that would satisfy these needs. Hence, in 2003, the long-distance extension course on “Accidents with venomous animals” was created, that it allows access to CEVAP’s media library, comprised of videos, CD-Roms, DVD-Roms, books, textbooks, and a website (www.cevap.unesp.br).

The student enrols on the course online, and receives by post the obligatory didactic material with 2 books and 2 CD-Roms, and a password for the virtual classroom, where he/she will find tools for synchronal and non-synchronal interaction with the other students and the professors, complementary didactic material and tests online. With this modality of University Extension, CEVAP provided an organized educational program, in which, the professor and the student are physically separated by time or geographically. In addition, professionals that live in areas distant from the big centers can keep updated.

CORRESPONDENCE TO: Rui Seabra Ferreira Junior, Fazenda Experimental Lageado- UNESP, Rua José Barbosa de Barros, 1780, Botucatu, SP, CEP: 18610-307. Tel/Fax: (14) 3814-5555 / 3811-7241 e 3814-5446. Email: rseabra@cevap.org.br