Netform: An online support system for teachers

The paper presents NETFORM a support system for teachers developed in Italy in the framework of a research project carried out by ITD CNR (Institute of Educational Technology of the National Research Council) in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. The system presents several innovative aspects both from an educational/methodological and from a technological point of view. The basic idea underpinning the whole project is that, in the field of education, experience, know how, efforts, ideas, in a word "best practices", should not be lost and that net-technology may be of great help in spreading knowledge, promoting reuse, fostering exchanges and communication among teachers. NETFORM environment has been designed around the idea of "educational learning unit", a sort of "educational itinerary" made up of a number of different steps or "educational activities" aimed at fulfilling the same learning objectives. As a result of the research project we propose here a flexible structure that encapsulate the complexity of any learning unit both in terms of number of activities to be per-formed and in terms of different types of links among the activities; we also account for the most interesting and innovative technological choices made.