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The COVID-19 pandemic and the move to remote education exposed old and new inequities, yet it also represented an opportunity to rethink inclusive education. This paper presents findings from a one-year project "DIGITAL in a time of Coronavirus" and draws upon policy analysis and interviews with teachers, principals, and community leaders from six countries in the Global North and South (Italy, England, Malaysia, Australia, United States and Chile). By mobilising education assemblage theory to challenge binary divisions (included/excluded, modern/colonial, local/global), it presents five concepts to rethink inclusion and its relationship with technologies. It illustrates how during the pandemic alternative entanglements of digital and non-digital technologies challenged narrow and Eurocentric constructions of the digital divide enabling inclusive subjective experiences. Drawing upon local possibilities and histories, re-habilitating non-scientific knowledges, especially in view of future experiences of blended education, the paper seeks to provide policy tools to rethink current understandings of inclusive education.

Due to the exponential growth of the number of subjects affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the entire Italian health care system had to respond promptly and in a very short time with the need of semi-intensive and intensive care units. Moreover, trained dedicated COVID-19 teams consisting of physicians were coming from different specialties (intensivists or pneumologists and infectiologists), while respiratory therapists and nurses have been recruited to work on and on without rest. However, due to still limited and evolving knowledge of COVID-19, there are few recommendations concerning the need in respiratory rehabilitation and physiotherapy interventions. The presentation of this paper is the result of a consensus promoted by the Italian societies of respiratory health care professionals who contacted pulmonologists directly involved in the treatment and rehabilitation of COVID-19. The aim was to formulate the more proper and common suggestions to be applied in different hospital settings in offering rehabilitative programs and physiotherapy workforce planning for COVID-19 patients. Two main areas of intervention were identified: organization and treatment, which are described in this paper to face the emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the international research conducted in collaboration between the University of Padova, University of North Texas, and Windesheim University of Applied Sciences. The study explores how higher education faculty involved in professionalizing courses for the educational area perceive the pandemic-induced transition to digitalized education (DE), after one year of experience with it. This paper introduces the second phase of a research study that began as early as spring 2020, with an online survey distributed worldwide. It seeks to investigate possible changes after one year of digitalized education related to (1) perceptions of institutional support and professional training offered; (2) potential and challenges of DE; and (3) professional intentions for future uses of DE. Details on the instrument's reliability and structure will also be provided. We are exploring how the DE is changing teachers' routines and whether these changes are paving the way for collaborative, reflective, and student-centred approaches that could have long-term consequences. This is to help focus future training pathways to better support teachers in teaching effectively and efficiently for learning, both in times of crisis and in times of normalcy.

In this article we present a case study concerning a simple but efficient technical and logistic concept for the realization of blended teaching of mathematics and its applications in theoretical mechanics that was conceived, tested and implemented at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering (DICAM) of the University of Trento, Italy, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The concept foresees "traditional" blackboard lectures with a reduced number of students physically present in the lecture hall, while the same lectures are simultaneously made available to the remaining students, who cannot be present, via high-quality low-bandwidth "online streaming." The case study presented in this paper was implemented in a single University Department and was carried out with a total of n=1011 students and n=68 professors participating in the study. Based on our "first key assumption" that traditional blackboard lectures, including the gestures and the facial expressions of the professor, are even nowadays still a very efficient and highly appreciated means of teaching mathematics at the university, this paper deliberately does "not" want to propose a novel pedagogical concept of how to teach mathematics at the undergraduate level, but rather presents a "technical concept" of how to "preserve" the quality of traditional blackboard lectures even during the COVID-19 pandemic and how to make them "available" to the students at home via online streaming with adequate audio and video quality even at low internet bandwidth. The "second key assumption" of this paper is that the teaching of mathematics is a dynamic "creative process" that "requires" the "physical presence" of students in the lecture hall as audience so that the professor can instantaneously fine-tune the evolution of the lecture according to his/her perception of the level of attention and the facial expressions of the students. The "third key assumption" of this paper is that students need to have the possibility to interact with each other personally, especially in the first years at the university. We report on the necessary hardware, software and logistics, as well as on the perception of the proposed blended lectures by undergraduate students from civil and environmental engineering at the University of Trento, Italy, compared to traditional lectures and also compared to the pure online lectures that were needed as emergency measure at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The evaluation of the concept was carried out with the aid of quantitative internet bandwidth measurements, direct comparison of transmitted video signals and a careful analysis of ex ante and ex post online questionnaires sent to students and professors.

This rapid systematic review aims to examine emerging evidence on the effects of COVID-19 on educational institutions and assess the prevalence of e-learning changes in the sector. This paper reviews literature on learning, teaching, and assessment approaches adopted since the COVID-19 outbreak, and assesses the impact on the sector, staff, and students, summarizing findings from peer-reviewed articles. It categorizes these into five key themes: (1) digital learning; (2) e-learning challenges; (3) digital transition to emergency virtual assessment (EVA); (4) psychological impact of COVID-19; and (5) creating collaborative cultures. This represents the first systematic review of COVID-19's impact on education, clarifying current themes being investigated. The author suggests that the term 'emergency virtual assessment' (EVA) is now added for future research discussion. Finally, the paper identifies research gaps, including researching the impact on lesser developed countries, the psychological impact of transition, and the important role of leadership and leadership styles during the transition and handling of the pandemic.

In the last two years, a growing number of studies have focused on the promotion of students' mental health to address the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, less studies have been conducted on sustaining teachers' mental health which has been affected by the sudden changes in online teaching and the difficulties in keeping and building relationship with students. Even before the pandemic, teaching has long been recognised as one of the most challenging occupations characterized by high levels of stress. Although the research highlighted the key role of mental health promotion among teachers, there is still a lack of programs enhancing teachers' wellbeing. This study examined the impact of the PROMEHS program, a school-based curriculum, on teachers' mental health. A total of 687 teachers participated in the study. Applying a pre- and post-training study design with experimental and waiting list groups, teachers were evaluated in social and emotional learning, resilience, and self-efficacy. The results showed that there was a significant improvement in all competences of the teachers in the experimental group compared to those in the waiting list group. The paper discusses the implications of the findings with recommendations for further studies in the area.

This paper explores the thesis of de-globalisation in relation to international education. Through interrogating accounts of international school leadership during the COVID-19 crisis, the tension between international expectations and localised realities is charted, with four central tenets of internationalism undermined by the pandemic experience. It is argued that the COVID-19 crisis, ostensibly a single global event, resulted in the fractalisation of international education; the conceptualisation of unified internationalism was undermined by the inherently localised material effects of the pandemic. In place of an internationalism that is unified, transcendent, inclusive and connected, international school leaders' accounts of leading through the pandemic focused on their sense that their schools were fractured, rooted, privileged and isolated. It is suggested that this international crisis demonstrates the precarious nature of the respatialising of the global that is intrinsic to international schooling.

Lockdowns imposed by many countries on their populations at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis forced teachers to adapt quickly and without adequate preparation to distance teaching. In this paper, we focus on one of the most formidable challenges that teachers faced during the lockdowns and even in the post-lockdown emergency period, namely, developing assessment that maintains the pedagogical continuity that educational institutions typically require. Based on the results of a previous study, focused on the analysis of answers to an open-ended questionnaire administered to a population of 700 teachers from France, Germany, Israel and Italy, a semi-structured interview series was designed and implemented by the authors of this paper with a small group of teachers. The transcripts of these interviews were analysed according to the interpretative phenomenological analysis methodology, with the aim of investigating teachers' own perspectives on the following: (a) the difficulties with which they had to contend, with respect to the question of assessment; (b) the techniques adopted to deal with these difficulties; and (c) the ways in which the lockdown experience could affect the future evolution of teachers' assessment practices. This analysis supported us in formulating hypotheses concerning the possible long-term effects of lockdown on modes of assessment in mathematics.

School-home communication is a growing research field in social sciences, particularly in education sciences and communication studies. While previous studies have paid much attention to the importance of school-home interaction in supporting primary academic socialisation and progress of elementary school pupils, the role of teacher-parent communication and collaboration in influencing the development of children's and adolescents' digital skills remains an under-researched area. This paper employed thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with education experts in six European countries, providing an insight into their opinions and views on the problems in communication between homes and schools. The analysis identified main problems in and obstacles to school-home collaboration on children's digital skills development, and the changes the COVID-19 pandemic brought along in this field of education. The paper provides five policy recommendations for enhancing school-home collaboration on digital skills development.

The aim of this paper is to propose an original analysis of the association between social status and attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines regarding upper-secondary students in Italy. The research was conducted by administering an online survey on a probabilistic and stratified sample of 5,699 students, in the spring of 2021, when the vaccination campaign in Italy had been underway for only a few months. Following the bourdieusian perspective, we have used a multiple correspondence analysis to examine the polarization between pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine groups as the clash of stances that agents take in accordance with their position in the cultural field. Our results suggest that the construction of a negative school experience by the subordinate classes is the source of a lack of social recognition in the cultural field, which feeds an aversion to everything the main institutions in this field recommend should be done.

Objective: This review summarizes evidence pertaining to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychological health of children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Materials and Methods: An electronic search was conducted using four major databases--PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Using an umbrella methodology, the reference lists of relevant papers were reviewed, and citation searches were conducted. The study included articles written in English between January 2020 and March 2021 that focused on the psychological health of autistic children and adolescents. Results: All eight studies included in the final review were cross-sectional. Three of the eight studies were conducted in Italy, two in Turkey, and one study each in Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, with a total of 1,407 participants. All studies used a mixture of standardized and non-standardized questionnaires to collect data. The total number of patients were 1407 at a mean age of 9.53 (SD = 2.96) years. Seven studies report gender; male 74.7% (657/880) and female 25.3% (223/880). The finding showed that behavioral issues in children and adolescents with ASD have significantly increased; 521 (51.9 percent) of the 1004 individuals with ASD presented with behavioral changes, including conduct problems, emotional problems, aggression, and hyperactivity. Some studies also found increased anxiety and difficulties managing emotions. Only one study reported clinical stabilization in children with ASD during COVID-19. Finally, 82.7% of families and caregivers of children with ASD (544 out of 658) faced challenges during COVID-19. Conclusion: Although the studies in this review suggest a general worsening of ASD children's clinical status, it remains difficult to draw definitive conclusions at this moment, with newer COVID-19 variants on the rise worldwide. During this difficult pandemic period, caregivers, families, and healthcare professionals are recommended to pay more attention to the ASD patients' health and care needs.

During the second semester of the 2019/2020 academic year, due to the regulatory restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, Bologna University, like many others, was compelled to stop delivering its face-to-face offering and to switch, in a very short time, to the creation of a technological architecture that would enable students to continue their education through teaching via Distance Learning. After illustrating the active teaching model adopted in two courses offered by the University of Bologna Department of Education Studies, this paper addresses future educators by focusing on the main findings from a semi-structured online questionnaire completed by 84 students. The first part of the paper considers a rethinking of educational planning at the time of COVID-19, while the second and final part analyses student perceptions (using the questionnaire's open questions) of their Distance Learning experience in the initial phases of the pandemic scenario.

The genesis and spread of COVID-19 around the world since 2020 have caused severe impacts in every aspect of people's lives, from work life to recreation, social activities to physical health. Higher education has not been excluded. Universities have altered curriculum, changed delivery methods, provided more counseling, purchased new technology, and altered attendance policy for classroom, athletic, social and artistic events (Hamlin, 2021). To assess the impacts of these changes on college students, the authors created a questionnaire to ask students about their perceptions of these COVID-related impacts on their own personal lives. The survey had 56 questions about how the virus affected their academic, social, financial, physical and emotional lives. Over 800 students responded with objective input and subjective comments. Due to the volume of data, the authors have split the study into two parts. The survey results for the first part, academic and social aspects of the survey, were published in "Understanding the Impact of Covid-19 on College Student Academic and Social Lives," Research in Higher Education Journal Volume 41 (see http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/213347.pdf). It will sometimes be referred to herein to provide clarity to the reader. The actual survey itself can also be found at that site. This paper focuses on the impact of the coronavirus on student financial and physical well-being, which have become major stressors to this age group and have contributed to higher levels of anxiety and depression. It also examines how the virus has affected their social and emotional well-being. Lastly, recommendations are made to help educators understand the severity of the problem, and to take action to provide assistance for those students who have been adversely affected.

The research described in this paper focused on the issue of describing and understanding how mathematical discussion develops in a hybrid learning environment, and how students participate in it. The experimental plan involved several classes working in parallel, with pupils and teachers interacting both in their real classrooms and in a digital environment with other pupils and teachers. The research was based on a rich set of data collected from the M@t.abel 2020 project, which was developed in Italy during the COVID health crisis. Based on Complementary Accounts Methodology, the data analysis presented in this paper involved specialists from the fields of mathematics education and inclusive education. In the study we considered the complexity of learning and the different elements that have an impact on students' activity and participation, when they are engaged in mathematical discussions within the multilevel-digital environment that emerged due to the pandemic. These parallel analyses showed that 'mathematical discussion in the classroom' is a complex (and sometimes chaotic) phenomenon wherein different factors interweave. A complementary approach assists in developing a global vision for this dynamic phenomenon and in highlighting local episodes that are crucial in this interplay of factors. It is precisely in these episodes that the role of the teacher is fundamental: these episodes appear as catalysts for the different variables, with the teacher acting as mediator.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze how remote working has been carried out during the first wave of the pandemic in Italian SMEs, representing at the same time an organizational challenge and an excellent opportunity for individual and organizational learning. Design/methodology/approach: This paper involved 60 Italian SMEs of various sectors and 330 employees--217 clerks (average age 42) and 113 managers (average age 48) belonging to different functional units and with a different education backgrounds. Two different questionnaires, one addressed to clerks and one to managers/executives who coordinate the remote working activity, were prepared and sent. This paper investigates the issues of perceived productivity, technological preparation, coordination, programming and control with specific attention to how the participants faced the remote working experience from the learning point of view. Findings: Before the pandemic, Italian SMEs did not feel the necessity to adopt a structured policy on remote working. The COVID-19 emergency has forced them to consider that working remotely is possible and can produce benefits and positive results for what they learned in terms of autonomy, motivation and trust, to the detriment of physical presence, which is not as fundamental to ensure productivity. Originality/value: While large, formalized and structured companies encountered modest difficulties being already technologically and culturally prepared for remote working, the big challenge was that of SMEs, who found themselves obliged to adopt it. This paper examines how Italian SMEs lived and evaluated the switch to a new work organization and turned it into an occasion for workplace learning.

The M@t.abel2020 project supported Italian teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic period, proposing activities based on the mathematics laboratory teaching method which are suitable for distance learning situations. The project resulted in the establishment of an online community of 1,500 teachers. In this paper we present an exploratory study based on an open-ended questionnaire assigned to teachers involved in the project, with the aim of analyzing the results of this training project in terms of mathematics teacher's specialized knowledge. Results show that the project enriched teachers' knowledge not only in terms of pedagogical content knowledge but also in mathematical knowledge.

There is not a large body of literature about digital resources found and accessed autonomously by high school students while studying mathematics, whereas this topic has become more and more relevant in times of lockdown due to the pandemic. Italy has been one of the first countries facing lockdown for an extended time, making this country a paradigmatic example: in this paper we investigate what kind of digital resources are accessed by the Italians high school students who actually use them and why. According to our results, students' aims and expectations vary according to the school grade, but are not as much devoted to procedural learning as previous literature has shown. Also, we observe that the type of searched media (text, video, image, etc.) is related to the mathematical contents and to students' objectives.

This paper deals with the pros and cons in relation to the teaching strategy imposed specifically in Italy by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has involved and continues to involve significant changes in the setting in which students and teachers interact. The approach is multidisciplinary, in that the perspective advanced is both historical and epistemological in nature. Particular attention is paid to the possibility of erecting an argumentative framework within the operational educational context as it takes place in the temporal and spatial dimensions of the school. Suggestions are provided regarding the set of "tools" useful for the constructive and creative management of didactic-pedagogical modalities inherent to "DAD" (acronym for the Italian "Didattica A Distanza", i.e., distance/remote teaching and learning), including combining the quantitative facets with the necessary qualitative facets, which are expressed in the category of the "bello" (beautiful), thus introducing the aesthetic value. Therefore, the concept of "benessere" (well-being) and that of "malessere" (malaise) are associated with the concept of "bellessere" (beautiful-being).

The University of Bergamo switched from regular classes to online classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic during March 2020, without leaving to the students the chance to meet their teachers in the traditional setting even once. As such, this context represents a unique opportunity to compare the traditional courses, held in the years before, with remote learning. In this paper, we focus on the lessons learned from switching a project management course that combines traditional lectures with Simulation-Based Training (SBT) to an online course with the same structure, same curriculum and the same teaching team. Lessons learned are based on the opportunity to compare the two methods of teaching and their learning outcomes. Based on the analysis, conclusions about the future of this course and similar courses are presented.

The paper presents a report that discusses the experience of participation of the authors in the EduHack, an online course designed to train university teachers in the use of digital techniques and learning strategies. This study highlights two issues of great interest in pandemic times. The first one is the structure and the organization of the EduHack course with some suggestions related to its improvement; the second one is Drag&Fly, the project idea of an e-learning web platform developed by the authors during the collaborative part of the course. The experience of participation to EduHack course has been analyzed by authors using concepts and categories of analysis widespread in the pragmatic theoretical tradition, enhancing the possibility of changing the teachers' approach to the design and the implementation of a higher education e-learning course.

In the last few years, several initiatives based on extracurricular activities have been organized in many countries around the world, with the aim to reduce the digital gender gap in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) fields. Among them, the Digital Girls summer camp, organized every year since 2014 by two Italian universities with the aim to attract female students to ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) disciplines, represents quite a unique initiative for its characteristics of long-duration (3-4 entire weeks) and complete gratuitousness for the participants. The COVID-19 emergency imposed severe changes to such activities, that had to be modified and carried out in the online mode as a consequence of social distancing. However, on one hand, the general lack of high-quality evaluations of these initiatives hinders the possibility to understand the actual impact of extracurricular activities on the future academic choices of the participants. On the other hand, the availability of data collected over different editions of Digital Girls has allowed us to analyze the summer camp impact and to evaluate the pros and cons of in-presence and online activities. The main contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we present an overview of existing experiences, at the national (Italian) and international levels, to increase female participation in integrated STEM and ICT fields. Second, we analyze how summer camp participation can influence girls' future academic choices, with specific attention to ICT-related disciplines. In particular, the collection of a significant amount of data through anonymous surveys conducted before and after the camp activities over the two editions allowed us to evidence the different impacts of in-presence and online extracurricular activities.

In the last year a new virus (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease caused by it (COVID-19) has quickly spread around the world, leading the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency and, then, a global pandemic status. The strategies adopted by many countries to reduce the impact of the pandemic were mainly based on social distancing rules and on stay-at-home measures or lockdowns. These strategies had severe disruptive consequences on many sectors, including all levels of education. While the "traditional" (face-to-face) Higher Education (HE) system was unprepared for the lockdown (e.g., no plans for a massive shift to online teaching were available/ready), it reacted in an extremely quick and effective way, replacing face-to-face teaching with online teaching. While COVID-19 has been extremely challenging for education, the experience has undoubtedly provided positive inputs for the digitalization of the HE system. The question is however, if whether after the COVID-19 emergency everything will go back to the previous situation or instead if the pandemic has irreversibly changed HE. While we are still in the middle of the crisis, it is in our view beneficial to start to reflect on the challenges and open issues that emerged during this period and the lessons learned for the "new normal" (as it is often referred to). In this conceptual paper we seek to start this discussion by focusing on the following relevant aspects that should be considered to succeed in the digital transformation: broadband network infrastructure and hardware devices; e-learning software; organization of teaching activities; pedagogical issues; diversity and inclusivity; and a number of other issues. We conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic will irreversibly change HE and probably for the better.

The University of Naples Federico II (Italy) offers a nine-month formative training program aimed at software development for the Apple technology ecosystem to ~400 learners per year and utilises the Challenge Based Learning ("CBL") methodology as a framework for learning. As a collaborative and self-guided, inquiry-based learning method, it focuses on learners' intrinsic motivation while working on real world problems organised in projects ("Challenges" in "CBL") with an experiential and progressive approach to apply acquired knowledge in real world scenarios, ideate solution concepts and build innovative digital products. To overcome limitations of spiral curriculum or elaboration theory, the authors applied narrative theory to design the program's educational experience for the academic year 2019/2020 as a cohesive journey within a communal learning environment with a coherent and connected structure of narratively driven learning Challenges. The authors present concepts to develop their approach further towards an emergent narrative experience design system to manage the educational journey as it develops, rather than scripting it. This paper evolves the authors' Narrative Experience Design Canvas to model educational experience design that encourages unscripted, emergent narratives for experiential education with the goal of fostering learners' engagement, agency and creativity. Derived in part by models developed for digital interactive storytelling or educational video games, it categorises the components for designing an educational experience that allows the learning progression to be driven by learners as co-authors and describes mechanisms that allow unscripted narratives to emerge based on intrinsic motivation. Additionally, the authors present considerations for synchronous and asynchronous learning to evolve their framework for application in blended or remote learning scenarios. Drawing upon findings for remote learning and experiential e-learning - ee-learning - presented by scholars as well as implications identified during the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting switch to remote learning within the program at University of Naples Federico II in 2020, it is shown how combining narrative elements with experiential e-learning principles can result in increased engagement, motivation and sense of community in learners. Using the example of an individual learning unit - a Challenge - considerations from overall course design down to day-to-day learning activities within the course are presented. For the future, the authors indicate action points to develop this model into an Emergent Narrative System for designing narratively driven and experiential software development education programs and indicate areas of further research on learning activity design for blended or remote learning experiences.

The COVID-19 pandemic has evidenced a need for tools and methodologies to support students' autonomous learning and the formative assessment practices in distance education contexts, especially for students from challenging backgrounds. This paper proposes a conceptualization of Interactive Feedback (IF) for Mathematics, which is a step-by-step interactive process that guides the learner in the resolution of a task after one or more autonomous tentative. This conceptualization is grounded on theories and models of automatic assessment, formative assessment, and feedback. We discuss the effectiveness of the IF for engaging students from low socio-economic contexts in closing the gap between current and reference performance through a didactic experimentation involving 299 Italian students in grade 8. Using quantitative analyses on data from the automatic assessment, we compared the results of the first and last attempts in activities with and without IF, based on algorithmic parameters so that the task changes at every attempt. We found that IF was more effective than other kinds of activities to engage learners in actions aimed at improving their results, and the effects are stronger in low socio-economic contexts.

The COVID-19 crisis has strongly affected the school system. In Italy, at-distance forms of didactics have been activated, changing the physiognomy of schools in terms of social interaction, practices and the identity of the individuals. In this paper, we address the issue of how teachers are facing the crisis: our focus is on assessment, as a key variable catalyzing personal history; beliefs; the interface between students; teachers and the school system. We study teachers' beliefs as part of their identities and assessment as a fundamental variable of beliefs. A qualitative content analysis of the open-ended answers to an online questionnaire is carried out to understand the main characteristics associated with assessment by teachers and the obstacles to overcome in the context of long distance learning (LDL). The data show that teachers did not identify valid assessment methods for LDL during the lockdown, especially due to the lack of control over the students. A misconception emerges concerning the definition of formative assessment together with a new awareness of the possibilities offered by digital technologies regarding the individualization of didactics. This study helps to understand which teachers' beliefs are related to assessment are and how they are shaped.

In the relationship between teachers and distance learning in the context of COIVD-19, a series of unprecedented dynamics have emerged relating to a process of open-air experimentation that is going on in the world of school. The main constructs investigated in this paper concern the professional perceptions of teachers in terms of their skills and resistances towards digital technologies. To investigate this topic, a questionnaire on distance learning was administered to a sample of 658 teachers. From a methodological point of view, factor and reliability analyses and correlation and regression analyses were conducted. From the analysis of the results, it emerged that the questionnaire measures the resistance of teachers to distance learning and focuses on three main dimensions (two positive and one negative) that link teachers' perceptions to the resistance to distance learning. In conclusion, the theme of the acceptance of technologies in the practice of teachers is still a subject full of meaning for professional perception and vision. A second issue concerns precisely the relationship between digital technologies and users, which must no longer focus only on the relationship with students but also on the perspective of the other training actors, including teachers.

This paper presents the perceptions on distance learning approaches, assessed through an online survey, using experimental design of ideas (Mind Genomics). Students and professors of higher education institutions who had not yet experienced distance learning before COVID-19 pandemic period participated in the study. The participants belong to the universities located in Mediterranean basin, e.g., Albania, Italy, Morocco, Algeria and few African countries. Results suggest that distance learning will shift many of the responsibilities formerly on the professors to those of the students. The data suggests the need for emotional support during this transition, specifically to maintain interaction among students and professor as well as among students themselves in distance learning platforms as in traditional classrooms. The study shows that the effectiveness and the interactivity of this new paradigm are very important and any further developments of distance learning should provide strong support for these components. The position of the professor is indispensable as the guide to the entire process, suggesting that at least at the time of this writing (2020) distance learning approach is perceived only to be an intermittent complementary path to in-person interactions.

This paper presents a compilation of personal reflections from 66 contributors on the impact of, and responses to, COVID-19 in accounting education in 45 different countries around the world. It reveals a commonality of issues, and a variability in responses, many positive outcomes, including the creation of opportunities to realign learning and teaching strategies away from the comfort of traditional formats, but many more that are negative, primarily relating to the impact on faculty and student health and well-being, and the accompanying stress. It identifies issues that need to be addressed in the recovery and redesign stages of the management of this crisis, and it sets a new research agenda for studies in accounting education.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected education at all levels in various ways. This paper provides a review of the literature on the challenges of online learning for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Method: In total, 17 studies from nine countries were analysed. The challenges of online learning for children with SEND reported by teachers and parents and the strategies applied to overcome the challenges were identified. Results: The challenges of online learning were the need of parental support, routine change, inequities of resources and access to technology, lack of accommodations, and social isolation. There was a considerable lack of interventions aimed at promoting the educational outcomes of children with SEND. Conclusions: The findings emphasise the importance of parent-teacher collaboration and communication. Suggestions for strategies to address challenges as well as for further research are also discussed.

Purpose: The study refers to a health-care organization engaged in adopting "home health care" as a new object of activity. This study aims to explore how the reconfiguration of the object influences the transformative perspective, affecting not just a service but a broader approach and meaning behind patient care. It also investigates the main contradictions at play and the levers to support inter-organizational learning while facing the new challenges and change processes. Design/methodology/approach: The work is based on a qualitative and ethnographic methodology directed to examine cultural, practical and socio-material aspects. The activity theory is assumed as a powerful approach to understand collective learning and distributed agency processes. Findings: The renewal of the new object of work is analyzed as a trigger for shifts in representations, cultural processes and collective support implemented by the organization. Three agentic trajectories -- technical, dialogical and collaborative agency -- were cultivated by the management to deliver home health care through joint exercises of coordination and control, dialogical spaces and collaborative process. Research limitations/implications: The data collection was disrupted by the pandemic. A follow-up study would be beneficial to inquire how the learning processes shifted or were influenced by the contextual changes. Practical implications: This contribution provides a practical framework for health-care organizations aiming to navigate and explore the physiological tensions and contradictions emerging when the object of work is changed. Originality/value: The paper develops the field of intra- and inter-organizational learning by presenting an intertwined and structural connection between these processes and the renewing of the object of work. It advises that processes of transformation must be handled with attention to the critical and collective dynamics that accompany sustainable and situated changes.

The paper takes a scientometric approach to measure the change in research productivity of Italian academics before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. We propose a composite output/input bibliometric indicator and apply it at the field level, conducting a longitudinal analysis. Although the number of academics in the national academic system has decreased, we register very strong growth in both the number of publications and their scholarly impact. The growth in productivity, with only rare exceptions, crosses almost all fields. However, in areas that are traditionally very internationalized (Biology, Physics, and Chemistry), growth is less sustained than overall average, and also the variability of productivity across fields seems reduced. The main reason for this detail would be the smaller margins for improvement in the fields that had already reached high international standing. What emerges from the analysis goes counter to some alarms of declining scientific productivity at the global level. The Italian case is partly explained by the historic adoption of policies aimed at strengthening competitive mechanisms, in particular through the introduction of systems of performance-based research funding, and bibliometric accreditation for professorship.

The competition of civilizations forced the European universities to adapt to the competition with the Chinese and American universities. European integration cannot advance without the collaboration between European universities. An answer to these challenges is the CIVICA project, the European University of Social Sciences, a consortium of the following universities: Bocconi University (Italy), Central European University (Hungary), European University Institute (European Intergovernmental Organization), Hertie School of Governance (Germany), The National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (Romania), Sciences Po (France) and the School of Economics in Stockholm (Sweden). This experiment aims to become one of the European pilot universities, in the first round of applications for Erasmus+ in February 2019. The experiment takes into consideration the most important resource of a country: the human resource. The network of universities that are part of the CIVICA consortium will group approximately 38,000 students, 7,000 teachers and 3,000 people from the administrative apparatus. The London School of Economics is part of the CIVICA consortium, as an associate partner. At the Bucharest conference, the public presentation of the consortium and its objectives, the rectors of the seven universities set out to educate the future generations of professionals in social sciences, in order to solve the most pressing problems of the world. Creating a European identity is essentially the long-term, fundamental objective of the CIVICA consortium. In the context of this conference, we interviewed a few representatives of CIVICA, and their answers will be analyzed in this paper's section dedicated to the results of the research.

With the COVID-19 outbreak and the resulting lockdown, Italian schools have continued to provide education using distance learning systems. In this emergency, the primary aim of the Ministry of Education was to guarantee each student's right to education. The expression "School Never Stops" ("La Scuola non si ferma") is a clear response to the country's isolation and a demonstration of the school staff's commitment. This paper describes Italy's educational response during the lockdown by illustrating the measures undertaken by the Ministry of Education and the initiatives by private and public organizations. The challenges of distance education during the pandemic emergency and future directions for the reopening of schools in September are also examined and discussed.

With schools and universities closing across Europe, the COVID-19 lockdown left actors in the field of education battling with the unprecedented challenge of finding a meaningful way to keep the wheels of education turning online. The sudden need for digital solutions across the field of education resulted in the emergence of a variety of digital networks and collaborative online platforms. In this joint article from scholars around Europe, we explore the COVID-19 lockdowns of physical education across the European region, and the different processes of emergency digitalization that followed in their wake. Spanning perspectives from Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the Nordic countries, the article's five cases provide a glimpse of how these processes have at the same time accelerated and consolidated the involvement of various commercial and non-commercial actors in public education infrastructures. By gathering documentation, registering dynamics, and making intimations of the crisis as it unfolded, the aim of the joint paper is to provide an opportunity for considering the implications of these accelerations and consolidations for the heterogeneous futures of European education.