The pandemic caused by COVID-19 is not just a global crisis, it is ‘the first’ global crisis, and as the mandatory confinement shifted all education to Emergency Remote Instruction/Teaching/Learning, Higher Education Institutions were faced with the heavy task of balancing the immediate massive technological-pedagogical request by teachers and providing students with the socio-educational support that they need. This paper analyses the socio-educational impacts of the current confinement period on student’s lives and how they are responding to implemented ERL solutions, specifically in a stage of abundant pressing changes in which critical challenges are mostly felt. A close-ended questionnaire was built, comprising six dimensions of issues that may impact ERL: educational and organizational issues, technological and working conditions, social issues, family-related issues, psychological issues, and financial issues. Results were collected right after the first month of ERL and reveal that the most severe problems reside on the pedagogical and psychological domains.

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Technologies are being introduced in our everyday life, including schools and in particular classrooms. Teachers are trying to make the most of web 2.0 tools and social media. However, we are not sure if, in fact, teachers are using these technologies and if when they do, if they do so with pedagogical purposes or to help them to manage the learning process or to replace some obsolete technologies by more modern ones but without learning objectives. To contribute to this question a questionnaire was developed and administered to teachers from higher education. Results show that there is still a long way to go before saying that teachers are fully using and taking the advantages of technologies in the classroom.

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Globalization, bringing about universal and dynamic transformations in every sector of the economy, is placing organizations everywhere in new and different competitive situations. In this context, the improvement of enterprise performance and economic growth makes increased demands for timely knowledge in the workplace to deliver competitive, knowledge-intensive work, enabling institutions and nations to maintain their vitality through economic growth and increased productivity. This chapter highlights the European strategy towards a knowledge-based society where innovation and competitiveness are the goals to be achieved. The Portuguese scenario concerning small and medium enterprises and the creation of a Portuguese knowledge and information economy are also described. Some approaches to knowledge management (KM), contributing to understanding the scope of this emergent domain, are introduced. The skills and competencies that a knowledge manager should develop in order to perform his/her job are discussed. The chapter concludes by mapping the main areas of study and practice that the authors consider as relevant to performing an effective knowledge management function.

The education sector is facing several challenges due to changes concerning the needs of students who arrive at HEIs, as well as due to labour market requirements. There are already solutions that try to meet the new requirements. However, the evolution of ICT requires a rapid and demanding adaptation. In this context it is assumed that education systems must address the diversity of students' backgrounds, taking into account their needs in order to provide access to learning objects, as well as the validation of knowledge of each student. In this paper, we propose a model where all the learning elements are present and where the student is the focus and the one who decides what should be included in this learning environment in order to create a Customised x-Learning Environment.