Challenges and Competences of the e-Teacher: A higher education experience in Portugal

In the wake of the vast array of new horizons the Internet has opened up in little more than a decade, one can truly say that today distance learning is an entirely different activity than what is was in the past, especially as regards the resources used and the network-based teaching processes. Distance learning is today supplied not only by institutions specialised in the field, such as the open universities, but also by a myriad of other institutions and organisations that are in some way linked to education or professional training and which, for different reasons, have embraced the use of digital network technologies to broaden or extend their traditional educational supply. From the operational point of view, this means being able to count on agents that are duly qualified to push forward and lend substance to the educational and training goals, at least from a perspective that promises meaningful innovation through harnessing the potential of the new information and communication technologies. Agents who are able to take advantage of these technologies and can go further than they traditionally did in pedagogical terms, both in relation to the training and educational strategies, and as regards the very aims of the learning. Indeed, in addition to instruction focused on the transmission and reproduction of knowledge, society has come to demand the acquisition and development of competencies that go far beyond the declared knowledge of each professional domain. We are referring namely to the transversal areas that include the competences of self-learning, collaborative work and all aspects that in one way or another contribute towards preparing individuals to deal with today’s changing times. It is in this specific context that we chose to tackle the issues related to the challenges and competencies of the “e-trainers”, i.e. all those who, in starting or performing a professional activity in the training or teaching area, would like to deepen their knowledge about the implications of the fact that that the new online learning environments are being shifted onto different levels