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This contribution explores the historical and educational context in Italy after the Second World War, focusing on the pedagogical and educational innovation of the Movimento di Cooperazione Educativa (Educational Cooperation Movement, MCE), founded to promote the techniques of Freinet, and in particular Bruno Ciari, teacher, politician and driving force behind national school renewal in Italy. Using printed sources and archives from the period, the paper looks at the social and pedagogical experiment developed by Bruno Ciari between 1966 and 1970 and promoted in the city of Bologna through «Pedagogic Februaries»; these involved a series of events, conferences and training initiatives, organised with the cooperation of key universities, targeting teachers and families in order to develop an innovative, shared school culture. From the egodocuments of a preschool teacher who worked with Bruno Ciari in the city of Bologna, we enter the heart of the renewal of teaching practices, highlighting the tormented process of change in the teaching profession, in favour of a school that would be a true alternative to the traditional model and open to the democratic demands of all society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at verifying the measurement capacity of a tool for teaching assessment at the University of Padova (Italy). The study is part of a project for improving academic educational innovations and the quality of academic teaching: an evaluative research approach thus allows reflection on useful teaching practices to share problems and find common solutions. This paper focuses on the contents and characteristics of statistical validity and reliability of the tool used, in an online survey to measure students' opinions of teaching (first-cycle, second-cycle, and single-cycle degree courses). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The purpose of the research reported in this paper was to study the acceptability of e-learning instruments either as substitutes for or a complement to traditional face-to-face education for people with a humanistic background. We conducted an international comparison between students (attending humanistic studies) in two different European countries: Italy and Portugal. The comparison allowed us to focus on similarities and differences in on-line educational programs and in two different settings and allowed for appropriate statistical analysis. Starting from data and observations, we propose an acceptance model of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and a measurement framework. In particular, the study includes both reliability and construct validity measures. To date there has been little research effort investigating the implications of switching from the traditional educational frameworks towards innovative on-line ones in an international comparative context. Our results show that students with a humanistic background may not be prepared to fully use technical tools as instruments of education. Therefore ICT instruments must be introduced in humanistic faculties via a stepwise approach which allows a gradual but definitive assimilation of the innovative technological learning instruments. The outcomes of our study have been directly applied on a real case: the Master Program in Human Resource Management (HRM) in the University of Rome 'Tor Vergata' where an e-learning platform has been implemented as a complementary to the traditional approaches to education. Furthermore our model is currently under investigation in large industrial companies with the aim of measuring and improving the e-learning education in the field of production and distribution of energy. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades, university-industry relationships have become an important subject due to the essential role played by technological progress in the economic development of countries. From a theoretical point of view, several studies have shown the close relationship between investments in research and innovative activities of universities and the economic growth of specific territories. Indeed, the strong linkages between universities and a country's production system encourage the process of technology transfer and the commercial use of the research results. For this reason, the European Union has implemented a series of measures to promote the adoption of research findings in the real economic and social context, strengthening the linkages between universities, industries and government. As a starting point for enhancing this link, specific mechanisms have been devised by universities. In particular, technology transfer offices (TTOs) have been created to stimulate and encourage the dissemination of the research outcomes, translate them into practise, and facilitate their interrelations with the other two agents of the innovation systems: industries and government. Within this context, the present paper aims to gain knowledge on the determinants of spin-off creation in Italy with special attention to the role played by university TTOs. Specifically, an econometric probability model has been built merging the extant literature into four distinct strands. The analysis, based on the NetVal indicators and primary data survey, has allowed us to assess the Italian experience at an aggregate and disaggregate level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the use of interactive screens in early childhood is quite recent and often produces divergent results. The article presents the experience of the Municipality of Florence and the University of Florence aimed at designing and experimenting the perspective of Media Education in early childhood with the involvement of the municipal nursery schools and preschools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to investigate the profile of comparative education in Italy, highlighting those elements that have characterised its development in relation to the cultural and political features of the country. This approach inevitably involves the comparison of Italy's specific particularities to those of other countries in the north and the south of Europe, in order to understand whether there are certain features that may place Italian comparative education within the wider framework of the Mediterranean area. What is involved in making a comparative analysis of the profile of a discipline and, more particularly, of comparative education in Italy, concentrating principally on the geopolitical context of its development? What is it that typifies the feature or features that make Italian comparative education quintessentially Italian? What are the main sources of comparative education in Italy, and what are the disciplines with which it continues to interact today? The article argues that in the wider framework of Western comparative education, Italy's voice, rooted in a plural tradition and open to new developments, is an original and important contribution for thinking critically this field of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Use of the Internet in Italy is in its early stages. Social representation and public discourse spread by mass media have emphasised the risks for children, at the expense of its opportunities. Such concerns are today largely hypothetical. This paper presents the initial results of an exploratory research project, using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, aimed at investigating the use of the Internet by children in a number of areas, mainly within the family and at school. The study found that children using the Internet as pioneers at home belong to a privileged elite, provided by the family with appropriate instruments and adequate technical and cultural resources. Far from being abandoned to the Internet, such children are supervised and led by parents-indeed often too much, as they are left little room to explore cyberspace independently. The establishment of the Internet in schools is rapid, but faces structural inadequacies while the use made of it is not always in keeping with its particular characteristics. L'emploi d'Internet en Italie se trouve encore dans sa phase initiale. Une analyse menée sur le plan social et le débat public renforcépar les mass media ont révélél'existence de risques pour les enfants au détriment des potentiels offerts par l'Internet. Actuellement nous n'en sommes qu'au stade d'hypothèses. Cet article présente les premiers résultats d'un projet de recherche dont l'objectif est d'étudier l'usage que font les enfants d'Internet, principalement dans les milieux de la famille et de l'école, et ce aussi bien d'un point de vue qualitatif que quantitatif. Cette étude a révéléque les enfants qui naviguent en pionniers sur Internet à la maison, appartiennent à la catégorie des privilégiés dotés, par les familles, d'instruments opportuns mais aussi de ressources techniques et culturelles. En effet ces enfants sont loin d'être abandonnés sur le réseau, mais bien guidés et contrôlés par leurs parents, parfois même d'une façon excessive puisqu'on ne leur laisse guère la possibilitéd'explorer de façon autonome le cyberespace. La diffusion d'Internet dans les écoles est assez rapide malgré le manque de structures, alors que l'usage que l'on en fait ne correspond pas toujours à ses caractéristiques particulières. El uso de Internet en Italia se encuentra actualmente en una fase inicial. El análisis del plano social y el debate público mantenido por los medios de comunicación, han puesto en evidencia posibles riesgos para los niños, en detrimento de las oportunidades que se ofrecen. En la actualidad se trata de preocupaciones hipotéticas. Este artículo presenta los primeros resultados de un proyecto de investigación realizado con el objetivo de estudiar el uso de Internet por parte de los niños principalmente en el ámbito de la familia y de la escuela, utilizando un doble enfoque cualitativo y cuantitativo. El estudio ha puesto en evidencia que los niños que utilizan Internet como pioneros en casa pertenecen a una categoría privilegiada, dotada de instrumentos apropriados asícomo de adecuados recursos técnicos y culturales. A estos niños no sólo no se les deja abandonados en la red, sino que reciben seguimiento y supervisión constante de los padres, a menudo en modo excesivo, en la medida que se les dejan pocas oportunidades para explorar por ellos mismos el ciberespacio. Si bien la difusión de Internet en las escuelas se produce con gran rapidez a pesar de las carencias estructurales, el uso que se hace de Internet no siempre toma en cuenta las posibilidades que éste ofrece. Die Benutzung von Internet in Italien befindet sich in seiner Anfangsphase. Die von den Medien übermittelte soziale Darstellung und öffentliche Auseinandersetzung hat die Risiken für Kinder hervorgehoben, auf Kosten seiner Möglichkeiten. Solche Bedenken sind heutzutage grösstenteils hypothetisch. Diese Studie enthält die ersten Ergebnisse eines untersuchenden Forschungsprojektes, dessen Ziel darin besteht, die Benutzung von Internet durch Kinder auf verschiedenen Gebieten zu untersuchen, hauptsächlich innnerhalb der Familie und in der Schule, mit einem sowie quantitativen als auch qualitativen Ansatz. Diese Untersuchung stellte fest, dass Kinder, die als Pioniere zu Hause Internet benutzt haben, zu einer ausgewählten Elite gehören, die von der Familie durch passende Instrumente und angemessene technische und kulturelle Mitteln unterstützt wurden. Auch wenn sie nicht dem Netz völlig überlassen werden, werden diese Kinder doch zu sehr von ihren Eltern überwacht und geleitet, so dass ihnen wenig Zeit bleibt unabhängig den Cyberspace auf eigene Faust zu erkundigen. Die Verbreitung von Internet in den Schulen geht ziemlich schnell vor sich an, trifft jedoch auf strukturelle Schwierigkeiten wobei sein Gebrauch nicht immer den spezifischen Eigenschaften entspricht. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case example related to a project promoted by INDIRE, the Italian Institute for Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research, in cooperation with a network of international experts in EFL and immersive teaching. The Institute created a virtual world, called "EdMondo", which is addressed only to education, involving teachers and students from all over Italy. The virtual approach in combination with gamification can represent an effective way to enhance the teaching/learning of a foreign language and the delivery of subject content through a foreign language as in CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) methodology. INDIRE started to experiment the potential of virtual worlds for language teaching and learning in 2012. This paper illustrates a training initiative in which a group of teachers, in cooperation with INDIRE researchers, were engaged in training paths aimed at improving their methodological competences related to the use of immersive game-based technologies for EFL or CLIL lessons. The main focus of the paper is the description of the project and its main outcomes, with particular attention to the teachers' reactions and to their challenges to build, design and script games for English or CLIL lessons in a virtual world. Some insights about the background on immersive and game-based learning are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the Italian Academic sector has been characterized by a phase of strong changes that have had a material impact on how to work with all of the parties involved in the administration and management of universities. In particular, the analysis conducted on the Italian university system has raised many questions, so much so as to generate a series of corrective action merged into a larger project of reforming the University system. It has changed the way of "making university", The need has emerged to review certain aspects of this institution with the objective of improving the product, towards greater competition with foreign interlocutors, much more careful cultural heritage and innovation in the country. In this context, this work represents the main objective analysis of the changes that have affected the Italian university landscape, with special reference to the organizational impact related to the introduction of Accrual Accounting in these Institutions. In order to achieve this goal, we have followed a logical path aimed at highlighting the motivation behind such a move and, at the same time, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of certain operational issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philanthropies and private foundations are increasingly acting as key nodes of the policy assemblages through which neoliberal and neomanagerialist policies are entering the field of education in Italy. In a country where public school 'ineffectiveness' and 'resistance to innovation' are taken for granted nowadays, policy philanthropists-entrepreneurs are attempting to lead the way in re-thinking education according to the new globalised economic imperatives. Starting from the ongoing 'evaluation turn' of the Italian education system, the article unravels the complexities of those processes of policy influence. The analysis addresses multiple foci: the emergence of new discourses of education reform and the networks of social interaction they are rooted in; the generative effects such discourses can have on producing new positions, subjectivities, opportunities; and the structural selectivities influencing education policy-making. The article highlights the first moves of a peculiar process of 'policy privatisation' whose main potential outcomes are both a process of education policy-making privatisation and a reculturing of education according to a new private-business ethos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]