This scientific contribution aims to propose a qualitative analysis of a good teaching practice conducted personally by the authors. The results of the research were obtained thanks to a longitudinal textual analysis with manual coding of all the written conversational exchanges that took place on the platform between tutors and students in five of the six overall academic years of delivery of this training module in e-learning mode. This idiographic research is part of the methodology of observational research. This training module was initially proposed in the presence for seven years within the Image Didactics Training Unit in the master's degree course in Primary Education Sciences. Then it was proposed for six years as a training module delivered in e-learning mode. Subsequently, in presence, the contents of the module were proposed until last year in the university teaching of technologies of teaching and learning and for the current year in the Laboratory of Didactic Technologies, both belonging to the master's degree course in Primary Education Sciences of the University of L'Aquila.
TopSince the advent of the first non-open source communication platforms for e-learning, in the late nineties, it was already evident to many pedagogical scholars that the economic-commercial structure on which they were based was in contrast to education understood as a public good to be shared as freely and equally as possible (Galliani, 2002; Manfredi & De Waal, 2005). Since then, the giants of digital technology that have established themselves and succeeded up to the present day have taken an interest and are increasingly interested in education and its institutions. Currently, many practices and discourses on ‘digital education’ are supporting a broad process of reconfiguring education that is increasingly at risk of greater adaptations in relation to the market. Through their presence in schools, even when philanthropic and free, they affect the tools used by teachers (Carlotto, 2017; Massou, L., Juanals, B., Bonfils, P. & Dumas, P., 2019; Palareti, 2020). And this condition then inevitably leads to repercussions on the learning models adopted.
With regard to media education, both in terms of educations to the media and with the media (Galliani, 2000a, 2000b; Rivoltella, 2017), one of the most recurrent reasons used by teachers to justify the non-activation of media training courses is the obsolescence of technical equipment in schools. This perception derives from at least two conditions regarding the technological knowledge and skills in which teachers often find themselves. On the one hand we are witnessing a lack of technological knowledge and skills in relation to their use, on the other hand a lack of knowledge and skills that allow the teacher to manage critically the innovative push of a commercial matrix coming from the technical instrumentation market. If on the one hand certain technical tools are still essential to be able to implement any path of media education, on the other hand this lack of knowledge and skills means that the technologies already present in schools are not able to be evaluated with technical and didactic precision, and at the same time that we do not know how to evaluate the additional technologies actually needed. A 2018 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study (2019) found that on average less than 40% of educators across the EU felt ready to use digital technologies in teaching, with divergences between EU Member States.
In the formative perspective of media education we have begun to respond to this constant and verified through the experiences (Luciani, 2014) lack of knowledge and skills on the part of teachers, activating this training module initially in presence for seven academic years (2001-2008) in the context of the Seminar introducing the Media Laboratories of the Image Didactics Training Unit pertaining to the Master’s Degree Course in Primary Education Sciences of the University of Padua. Subsequently, again at the University of Padua, but in e-learning mode, we proposed this training module between the academic years 2008-2011 as part of the training familiarization Desk to various teachings and various media laboratories, to then continue until 2014 as module inserted in the teaching of Theories and techniques of radio and television language with video-filmic and radio analysis and writing laboratories: courses both pertaining to the blended master’s degree course in Theories and Methodologies of Media Education and E-Learning. Subsequently, at the University of L’Aquila and a new time in presence, the contents of the module were inserted between the academic years 2014-2020 in the teaching of Technologies of teaching and learning and to date (2021) in the Laboratory of didactic technologies: both courses related to the Course of Studies in Primary Education Sciences.