University Teacher Training during the Covid-19 Emergency: The Role of Online Teaching-learning Tools

This research summarizes the collaborative training experience of university professors acting as tutors of their peers. A three-phase training process was planned and taught: the goal was to train teachers to design, practice and use online teaching-learning ICT tools. The workshop also aimed to motivate and improve teachers’ emotional state, given the adverse conditions generated from isolation due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Communication and planning in collaborative spaces, and activities conducted with and independent of the tutor group (a team with interdisciplinary, pedagogical and technical capacities) generated clear, progressive achievements in professor participants. A training space was created through the collaborative work of heterogeneous groups of professors via tools such as Zoom, WhatsApp, an institution platform based on Moodle and e-mail. Through these spaces knowledge was constructed collectively; professors were encouraged to continually practice new tools and were challenged through continuous training sessions. The process progressively strengthened teachers’ ability to use ICT tools while simultaneously opening new spaces for genuine communication that helped teachers begin the new online academic period in a positive way.