COMPUTER SUPPORTIVE COMMUNICATION LEARNING APPROACH TO IMPROVE IN-SERVICE TEACHERS' EDUCATION IN EUROPE

Previous pedagogical models have failed to take into account new contextual and mobile methods of learning with the advances in technology-mediated learning. This article puts forward a pedagogical approach, namely, future innovative in-service teacher education in Europe (FISTE). The work was sponsored by the European Union Comenius fund and directed by the University of Targoviste in Romania. The FISTE project is concerned with the educational use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), specifically with the development and dissemination of a new pedagogical strategy for distance learning through in-service teacher education (FISTE) in schools across Europe (the FISTE website 2006). The project uses the on-line Virtual Learning Environment platform BSCW as a Computer Supportive Communication Learning tool to facilitate the way the participants work together. It is a continuous meeting place for them, a stable base to work from and at the same time an easily accessible archive of the entire FISTE project teaching material on which all the undertaken activities are based.