CNR-ITD

Framework

The sensitivity of the scholastic world towards pupils who for health reasons cannot regularly attend everyday classroom lessons is now well-known. It is attested to by  the Hospital School regulations and, more recently, by so-called Homebound Education (HE) in Italy.
For students forced into long periods of isolation there are clear the affective, emotional and social advantages and results deriving  from the use of the most innovative tools like the Web 2.0 and instant messaging services (e.g. Skype and Messenger), or the digital media (e.g. LIM or portable devices like smartphones or tablets and mini-tablets).
In this context, great expectations are being aroused by the possibility of using (mainly Web 2.0) technologies to foster teaching/learning processes at hospital and home, so it’s necessary to support teachers’ development of specific competencies in the technological area.
The AFSO (Area Formazione Scuola in Ospedale) project is the operational development of the framework agreement between MIUR (Italian Ministry of University and Research), ITD-CNR and Politecnico di Milano.
It is aimed at the development of a training model for teachers in service at the hospital and in homebound education.

Objectives

The aim of the project is to seek out and test new training models (e.g. xMOOC) for all the teachers involved in the educational paths with hospitalized and homebound students.

Workplan

• Identify the training needs of the teachers by an online survey
• Plan and generate the content of training supported by a pool of experts in the identified subject areas
• Implement and validate of a prototype for the training course
• Start a periodic cycle of events by webinar. The webinar’s subject matter will be oriented to satisfy the professional needs identified in the first phase of the project
• Support and encourage the development of an online community of teachers

Expected results

A model of lifelong learning for continuing professional development of teachers