Informatica per la formazione, l'insegnamento e l'apprendimento

To evaluate the way in which communication technology can improve the teaching/learning process and teacher training has represented one of the main points of this research. The central question was: how can technology represent an added value based on the human person? It is important that the formal educational contexts question the learning which is activated through the informal channel because, in reality, they are aspects that are intertwined. The reflection began from the fact that the development of Information & Communication Technology (ICT), on one hand, changed didactic actions, producing new dynamics of learning and, on the other hand, teacher training. The research has been developed on two different fronts: didactic technologies and teacher training. As a consequence the focus of this research concentrated on the situation of learning in both formal and informal contexts and on the initial and ongoing training of the teacher. The focus of the research was investigated following two exploratory lines; on one side, some teacher training e-learning platforms were analysed, recently used in ministerial and university fields; from the other, the attention focuses on a device, the Interactive Whiteboard, to study to what extent, or not, this instrument can activate a teaching method that can improve the multitasking approach and can modify the so-called traditional didactic method. For the research regarding the Interactive Whiteboard, an observation at the Ghisleri (Bergamo), Primary School, was performed; this research was completed by a focus group of teachers and parents and then interviews with the school heads. For the teachers’ part of the research, other than the analysis of some blended training, an online questionnaire was prepared for teachers who had participated in the e-learning training projects to understand in which way the training had, or not, improved or modified their teaching methods; furthermore two interviews were carried out. Finally, the project Generazione Web was analysed to verify, also in numerical terms, how much the investment in these technologies is being utilised in schools in the Lombardy Region, which was chosen as a research model.