The national programme for school success promotion and the role of technology: Challenges for teacher training

The National Programme for School Success Promotion equipped schools with the necessary resources to find effective ways to fight against the school failure rate. Among the measures provided by schools in their strategic plans, special mention should be made to teacher training in three key areas: methodological/didactic, organizational/pedagogical and civic/social. In order to ensure that the strategic plans of the schools from Tomar, Ourém and Ferreira do Zêzere are implemented, Os Templários (a training centre bringing together clusters of schools from various municipalities) has launched in partnership with the Laboratòrio de Tecnologia Educativa (LabTE) of the University of Coimbra and the Instituto Politécnico de Tomar, the Project MobEdu - Mobile Technologies and Devices in Education - that includes various workshops using computer applications. This contributed to meet the training needs of the clusters of schools which regarded the use of technology in education as one of the main areas of intervention. In order to measure the impact of the training actions among students, teachers and the schools themselves several case studies will be conducted in the Médio Tejo clusters of schools covered by the project.