ICT and competence development: a case study

This paper describes a case study conducted in a post-graduation course that employed social software to distribute its learning environment and to promote a different training experiment to attending students, mostly in-service teachers. It suggests an approach to teacher training that resorts to distributed knowledge-based systems and the communication tools they provide as a means to create personal learning environments where teachers can find support to develop and improve teaching practices. Based on a survey questionnaire and a focus group, results suggest that the approach adopted enabled teachers to acquire and improve competences and to better manage and update knowledge and action. Although results cannot be generalized, the paper adds insights into the teacher training panorama and draws possible future directions for work in the area.