The proximity of distance education

[EN] The Institute for Educational Technologies (ITD) in Genoa, part of Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) has long held high-quality on-site training and refresher courses for teachers that are recognized by Italy’s Ministry of Education and Research (MIUR). In addition to participating in face-to-face initiatives, Italy’s teachers are increasingly exploiting opportunities to participate in certified online training initiatives. These are especially popular as they permit teachers a high degree of autonomy and flexibility in managing their learning. Since September 2014, ITD-CNR has been testing and implementing innovative training methods (mostly on behalf of a large Italian public research organization). These include webinars, which make it possible to reach large numbers of participants. ITD-CNR has also designed and made available a series of open courses designed to help teachers develop the skills needed to enhance classroom integration of students with disabilities, specific learning disabilities, and other special educational needs. These courses also address the use of technologies and strategies for more effective school inclusion. To ensure these training proposals remain usable over time and continue to provide relevant content, in 2016 ITD-CNR created an online platform called Essediquadro Training (https://sd2.itd.cnr.it/corsiformazione). This aggregates and makes available five open courses that are free of charge, totalling 130 hours of high-quality, certified training.In the past two years, the platform has attracted over 9000 registered users (pre- and in-service teachers), and has become a focal point for similar training initiatives launched by schools and universities, who are integrating their own training courses with those on offer from Essediquadro Training. In this contribution, we illustrate the characteristics and contents of the Essediquadro Training platform, examine the use of webinars for teacher training, and offer some considerations based on results of satisfaction questionnaires compiled by platform users.