Digital technology has become essential in teaching and learning, thus requiring of both teachers and students the possession of digital competencies. In education, technologies and methodologies are intertwined, and, as a consequence, all the stakeholders need to be competent in the specific sense, which goes further than being confident with digital tools in a general sense. This prompted institutions to propose initiatives favoring the use of digital in education, such as the European project DIGICODE, devoted to the security and defence context, featuring the participation of both universities and military academies. In this paper we investigate the possibility of designing and implementing effective training activities in order to allow teachers, and subsequently students, to develop digital skills. We consider two events, namely a staff training reserved for teachers and an international school involving both students and teachers. By analyzing teachers' and students' questionnaires, we track the variation of their digital competencies, along with students' perception of effectiveness and appreciation of the activities proposed, which carefully combined the theory with more engaging aspects such as interactivity and practical applications. Furthermore, we discuss our findings in light of a framework including different dimensions (pedagogical, human, technological, institutional), which have proved to be strongly related to each other, allowing us to set a methodological base on which to build such actions. In this setting, we show as well the importance of collaboration and ideas exchanged, both at the interdisciplinary and the interinstitutional level.

Every year, there is increasing interest in applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms and systems in education. Educating students about the conscious use of AI and its challenges is essential. Still, even before that, it is necessary to educate teachers who need to acquire the necessary skills to use these technologies in the classroom to enrich their students' learning experience. Training must be theoretical and guide teachers in designing educational activities with AI, about AI, and preparing for AI. This article presents research conducted in Italy to understand educators' attitudes toward AI in Education. Responses to a nationwide questionnaire are analysed to understand the relationship between teachers at all levels of schooling and AI. The results show that teachers need more confidence in their AI skills but are also not too concerned about the increasing spread of AI at various levels. From the findings, we can also say that AI has found little space in the school activities of Italian teachers. At the same time, teachers state that they urgently need to be trained on AI issues.

Close contact between schools and universities may help students take an informed choice on future paths in education and job. Educational stakeholders must act in synergy among themselves and the other partners. At the University of Turin, an experience of teacher training called "Ambasciatori start@unito nelle scuole" (start@unito ambassadors in schools) helps secondary teachers act as links between secondary and higher education institutions. Teachers attended a module in which they learn how to provide "orientative teaching" using Open Educational Resources. According to the knowledge of the authors, there is very little international research about didactics with the specifically declared purpose of orientation. All resources are based on university modules specifically developed to facilitate students’ transition from secondary school to university. Teachers experimented with their educational activities aimed at showing students possibilities for future exploration. The experience of the ambassadors was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively through questionnaires to investigate the role of the teacher and the mediation of technology in this transition context and the consequent change in school didactics, also considering the students’ point of view. Findings show that teachers appreciated this peculiar project, they recognized that students developed essential skills, and they became more aware of their role, also as orientators in their daily teaching. These findings imply the need for wider training actions to address other school teachers on these important matters.

According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of job postings for software engineers has steadily increased over the past few years and is expected to grow by 22% from 2019 to 2029. This paper presents the pedagogical experience within the new Immersive Software Engineering (ISE) program concerning mathematical foundations and data analytics topics. These topics were designed to cover essential mathematical concepts such as calculus, linear algebra, probability, and statistics and their integration within data analytic tools and techniques such as time-series forecasting, data cleaning, data visualization, and introduction to pattern recognition. In addition, hands-on projects and real-world applications were incorporated throughout the course to provide students with practical experience in these areas. We reflect on the first delivery of the ISE course, which provided students with a new innovative blended learning environment, and how it will be further developed towards Open Educational Resources (OER) components and refined to respond to the rapidly evolving needs of the software engineering industry.

Distance and online teaching and learning have become common forms during the COVID-19 pandemic that forced the change of pedagogical and didactical approaches from residential to virtual and online settings. Given that these novel forms of teaching and learning possess advantages beyond the needs of this contingent situation, it is reasonable to suppose that they will be used also after the end of the pandemic. In light of this, it is important for all the stakeholders to possess digital skills fine-tuned to education, in order to teach and learn at best, even more so in international contexts such as those regarding security and defence. This is in accordance with the more general setting of future skills, that considers personal development related to what the world is requiring. In this paper, we investigate changes from before to during the pandemic in the perception of teachers working in programs or courses concerning security and defence on several aspects, such as the relation with their students and the time required to carry out various tasks. Our investigation, conducted through the analysis of an online anonymous questionnaire, triggers the suggestion that teachers need a specific training in digital skills, since they experience difficulties in relating with students and in performing tasks without excessive time consumption. Our analysis took place in accordance with international partners from the European project DIGICODE, which aims at improving the security and defence education quality by using digital tools in the didactic activities and by developing teachers' digital competencies.

The outbreak of a pandemic in the middle of the academic year unavoidably brought severe consequences to universities' educational organizations, since it disrupted timetables and programs that are usually designed months in advance. With millions of students around the world unable to physically attend lectures and other activities at universities, distance learning soon became a pivotal solution to allow studying from home. On the other hand, online resources as a complement or alternative to physical attendance have been part of the academic context for more than a decade. Still, they were usually not intended for replacing in-person didactics in an emergency setting. In this paper, we consider a module in Linear Algebra and Geometry at the University of Turin. The module was originally intended as blended, with lessons and activities in presence supported by asynchronous remote activities, but it had to be redesigned as purely online a few weeks after the beginning of the semester. The use of a Digital Learning Environment, with technologies and methodologies, which already proved crucial in a blended setting, was fundamental in giving an immediate response while transitioning to distance during these pandemic times. We discuss this transition using students' answers to two questionnaires and through the analysis of students' activities in relation to their exam results. The outcomes are generally positive, highlighting confidence in the course and the students' preparation, even in such a challenging context.

Adaptive online learning can facilitate students' support by responding immediately to the user's interactions. Good feedback to students helps closing the gap between actual and desired performance. In this paper we analyze how to introduce online adaptive formative learning in Computer Science, a discipline with well documented challenges that are hard to tackle with traditional classroom methods. Specifically, we developed illustrative learning items teaching Model-Driven Design and implemented them in an online system that implements a model for automatic formative assessment developed by University of Torino. The model takes advantage of an automatic assessment system initially designed for STEM disciplines, then adopted for teaching languages and other disciplines too. The key features of the adaptive model supported by the online system are algorithmic questions, availability, contextualization, immediate feedback, interactive feedback, and open answers. These features are portable across subject domains, so the system can be adapted to include new subjects. We chose MDD because it is a topic of Computer Science education connected with Computational Thinking, software design, and formal methods, which are three of the core areas in need of enhanced support.

Mathematics plays a pivotal role in most scientific disciplines, being them meant both inside and outside academic contexts, with applications in a large part of the jobs nowadays, and also in several situations of everyday life. If on one hand this is well recognized, as an expression like the queen of the sciences show, on the other hand it is usually not among the students' preferred subjects, both from the liking and the interest points of view. Furthermore, it is still partly believed that Mathematics cannot be properly learnt by everyone, since it is perceived that, for really mastering it, a specific personal attitude is necessary. Considering all this, we designed a course in which the approach is considerably devoted to applications, being it directed at students of a scientific bachelor program not mainly focused on Mathematics, and problem solving, that is the contextualization of problems in real life situations. For this purpose, we made use of technologies such as a Learning Management System integrated with an Advanced Computing Environment and an Automated Assessment System. It has been observed that the students, which are taking a program in Biotechnology, gained curiosity and interest in the subject, thus allowing in turn a better proficiency. Since interaction between learners is promoted, the students are made active users of the contents, and their learning paths can be adapted according to the personal needs. They have been able to improve also the self-consciousness of their skills. This has been an important achievement especially for (but not limiting to) their future as scientists, considering the role transversal skills play in science, such as teamwork or flexibility. Finally, the students were specifically able to recognize how the problem solving approach will help them in both university and job careers, and how the use of the software has been helpful too.