Small School, Smart Schools: Distance Education in Remoteness Conditions

Mountain, insular and internal areas represent 70 percent of the Italian land with a population that experiences many difculties in daily living due to territorial constraints. Nevertheless, it is extremely important to guarantee equal opportunities and services to those\r\nwho live on the mountains and small islands of the country. Distance lessons could be an\r\nopportunity to overcome isolation and ofer equal and quality teaching activities within\r\ncurriculum. Remoteness and Distance education will be part of the curriculum of the small\r\nrural schools to ofer to the students the opportunity to have equal and quality education\r\nas the “standard” schools. In this chapter we will describe two teaching methods which\r\nprovide education through technological settings and project-based learning to foster soft\r\nskills in the students with the aim of learning disciplinary competences: (i) The Extended\r\nLearning Environment, where two or more classrooms work together on a common school\r\nsubject project using diferent kind of technological setting. (ii) The Shared lesson, based\r\non every day distance learning activities. Two classrooms (with students of diferent levels)\r\nof diferent schools defne a smart setting with video-conferencing system and knowledge\r\nforum on a daily basis sharing the same lesson in the same time of school.