DEVELOPING TEACHERS' PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

Today, there is a widely shared opinion about the evolution of ICT and enhancement of communication as social space. These relevant changes have had an impact on the evolution of Distance e-Learning and its spread in Higher Education. Often, e-learning is considered as a way to respond to requests from market, which come from a growing and articulated demand for training, posed by the knowledge society; despite the change triggered by ICT within education and training systems is indeed far-reaching. But experiences at an international comparison are very different among them. We may recognize different theoretical approaches to e-learning and different phases in the evolution of distance learning, due to the progress of ICT. But the creation of platforms, through which to connect an increasing number of learners and teachers, does not solve the problem of knowledge construction. The risk we run is to create an education market where the only goal is the certification more than the formation and its socio-cultural impact on subjects and contexts. For this reason, the focus of this reflection will be the mean dimensions of a positive interaction to undestand how to analyse the online relationship in a virtual classroom. According with these issues, the aim of the essay is to show that the communication and the didactical relation play an important and ineliminable role in the learning process both in the online learning and in traditional learning. On the basis of these premises the main research points can be summarized as follows. What kind of educators’ communicative skills can favour the e-learning process in a virtual classroom? What kind of social and leadership skills caractherize a good educators? What are key competences for digital educators? How educators’ communicative, social and leadership skills can influence the learning process? The essay starts with a reflection about the challenges for teachers in XXI century (§ 2) and continuos analysing teaching interaction and learners’ learning (§ 3), to conclude with some proposal for an empirical research and teaching teachers to teach (§ 4).