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Nowadays a large organisation requires a solid and efficient system for managing the learning process of internal organisation in a lifelong learning perspective. The Italian Army decided to boost the lifelong learning concept for military personnel in a modern and digital way by using the e-learning environment. This decision was based on the long experience of the Education and Training Command and School of Applied Military Studies (COMFOR-SA) Virtual Learning Centre (VLC) and its cooperation with the University of Turin in the field of e-learning. This cooperation allows to adopt innovative teaching and learning methods and enhance the internationalization program of the Bachelor and Master Degree in Strategic Sciences attended by Officers and civilian students. In order to reach the entire potential target audience, composed of all categories, such as Officers, NCOs and Volunteers and to maximise the use of e-learning for different didactic purposes a full spectrum lifelong e-learning project was developed. Initially the focus was based on the development of a special Hub composed of the Portal for Self-Paced Courses in combination with the Portal of Knowledge and the Support Portal. Then the User's E-portfolio and the Language Portal were added. The Hub expanded its area of competence and additional portals were created. All e-learning resources and activities were properly reorganised and structured in a full spectrum new concept for a more effective e-learning experience for all military education and training purposes. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the structure of the project in terms of contents, design and solutions adopted.

Enhancing language skills is a duty for many institutions, schools and universities; Information and Communications Technology is nowadays supporting language teaching, heading also to the integration of foreigners. According to previous studies, the use of a Technology Enhanced Learning Environment can foster language competences through online tests. The goal of this paper is to show and discuss different typologies of automatically evaluated questions useful to learn languages and designed with an Automatic Assessment System, already successfully used for teaching STEM disciplines: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. This work has been carried out thanks to the collaboration between the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Foreign Languages. Five different typologies of questions are analysed: "Combining sentence elements" asks to combine given elements to form at least three correct and meaningful sentences; "Find the mistake" asks whether a sentence is grammatically correct and to explain why; "The Target puzzle" asks to join words together using precise links; "Scrambled text" asks the student the correct sequence of sentences in a scrambled text; "The Encrypted Crossword puzzle" is a crossword puzzle without definition clues. Linguists consider these question types effective to develop language competences and have already used them profitably in traditional teaching and language learning. To engage the learner and increase motivation, we will develop an implementation where the questions are self-evaluated, always available, with immediate and interactive feedback. These tools could be used in online language courses and in all those teaching activities that are carried out remotely by the student alone. All questions are outlined with the explanation of the grading code and a triplet of descriptors; they describe the Performance, Requirements and Objectives of each question and allow further studies on automatic detection of the relatedness between different language learning objects, in order to construct adaptive language tests.

The emergence of Technology Enhanced Learning environments has led to the continual growth of the availability of digital educational resources. In this paper, the potential of enabling their reuse into student-centric services – such as recommender systems or adaptive tutoring tools – is discussed through the proposal and comparison of procedures for automatically detecting the mutual relatedness among learning objects. Since the choice of the similarity measure is fundamental for clustering digital materials, this paper addresses the investigation on two distinct approaches: the content-based semantic similarity, compared to the closeness measure on natural language descriptions of metadata – namely prerequisites and educational objectives. The analysis is conducted on a collection of mathematical problems, equipped with metadata which facilitate their retrieval in Virtual Learning Environments, created by Secondary School teachers with the support of University experts. Natural Language Processing techniques are exploited for extracting relevant information from the metadata, while the developments in the emergent field of Mathematical Language Processing are proposed for the treatment of mathematical expressions included in the resources. The distinct similarity measures presented are examined considering the compared results, and their correlation is evaluated. This study is intended to be the first step towards the definition of a model for structuring shared materials available in disciplinary repositories of virtual communities. This model will be used for implementing a system for the delivery of learning objects trajectories on a digital map automatically generated. The system’s efficacy will be tested through its integration to a Learning Management System hosting secondary school classrooms’ courses. The research is part of a PhD in Pure and Applied Mathematics in apprenticeship, conducted in partnership with leading providers of software based on Computer Algebra System engine.

The Education and Training Command and School of Applied Military Studies of Turin (COMFOR-SA) - Virtual Learning Centre (VLC) owing to a solid and round experience in e-learning, and because of being a support and distance learning developer and provider for university and military courses, has received the task of organizing an ambitious program and serving as special hub for all new contents and e-learning courses for IT-Army education and training programmes. The VLC continues the strong cooperation established with University of Turin (UniTO) in the specific field of e-learning in direct support to courses. In addition, a new broad concept has recently been developed that aims at having a dedicated Portal for Self-Paced Courses combined with a Portal of Knowledge in a unique environment. In a Lifelong Learning perspective the potential target audience is composed of all categories, such as Officers, NCOs and Volunteers. Users can find, via internet or Intranet and by using all kind of devices, the right course and contents whenever and wherever required or needed. The model is specifically designed to offer a full spectrum and integrated e-learning service where all providers (teachers, instructors and Subject Matter Experts) are involved (crowdsourcing) with a Knowledge Management and Teaching procedure. It is also enriched by a User's E-portfolio where all progress can be stored and articles and paperwork can be uploaded. In this new concept a strategic role is played by teachers and support personnel and for this reason the first MOODLE Military Online Course (Mil-OC) for teachers was organized nationwide. They were trained in how to use different tools and plug-ins. More courses will be organized in the next future in order to increase the number of teachers involved in the program and to improve their e-learning knowledge and skills. This new comprehensive idea of providing E-learning is the pillar of all future projects and helps to reach another goal: developing digital skills among military personnel. The COMFOR-SA has invested a lot of effort and, thanks to the cooperation with the UniTO, is now ready to take the lead in Military E-Education.

Teachers need, in a lifelong learning dimension, occasions that provide them with opportunities to reflect on the activities done by themselves, to learn how to use the newest and most advanced technologies in their teaching, to exchange ideas, to confront themselves on the updated didactic methodologies. Only in this way can they enhance their professional competences and keep the motivation for their job high. Online contexts seem to be the most appropriate option for in-service teacher training because teachers work fulltime in school and, having personal and family responsibilities, it is difficult to find time for scheduled meetings. In this paper we will discuss online asynchronous collaboration within the virtual community of the Italian teachers of Mathematics of secondary schools who participate to the national Problem Posing and Solving (PP&S) Project of the Italian Ministry of Education. One of the main goals of PP&S, which started in 2012, is to enhance teaching and learning Mathematics and Informatics using new methodologies and technologies. The community lives on an e-learning Moodle platform integrated with several tools. Using a multi-method approach, we analyse the online forum discussions among teachers and tutors collected in the last three years; in particular, we explore which kind of activities they suggest to adopt in their real-world classes and the nature of the interactive processes activated in the community. This collaboration among teachers is a peer support and facilitates the process of transformation of practices and of construction of new professional knowledge and competences. Some implications for the training of teachers in pre-service are discussed.

In order to improve education and to develop a stronger internationalization program, the Education and Training Command and School of Military Applied Studies of Turin and the University of Turin adopted a virtual learning environment as main tool within the Bachelor and Master Degree in Strategic Sciences for Military and Civilian students. A great number of modules of different subjects are available on a dedicated E-learning platform (MOODLE) where students receive additional contents, discuss with peers and are supported by teachers. Through interactive materials and different activities they can develop the capability of discerning, combining and applying the knowledge. These skills are very useful in the professional environment especially for a military officer and for civilians who are supposed to work in similar complex contexts. Thanks to this E-learning system education, programs such as the Military Erasmus, where military and civilian students of several European education institutions are involved are facilitated. Selected students share experiences, attend blended courses and finally can grow up with a common European feeling. In order to adopt this E-education the Education and Training Command and School of Military Applied Studies of Turin and the University of Turin invest time and effort into the training of teachers, developing new interactive materials and offers a custom helpdesk for a prompt and personalized support. This way of providing education is considered the best way for the future, because it prepares students for global changes and offers real opportunities of lifelong learning. Students' feedback is extremely positive and this encourages to continue with this kind of e-learning activities.

In modern societies, life itself is a problem solving. OCSE-PISA defined the problem-solving competence as the capacity to engage in cognitive processing to understand and solve problem situations where a method of solution is not immediately obvious. Hence in teaching Mathematics, and in general scientific subjects, it becomes important to adopt new methods centred on student learning, which are able not only to deliver knowledge but also to enhance the competence in problem solving. It is essential to start from simulated real-life problem situations in order to explain new concepts, since it enables students to understand the application of Mathematics as well as to enhance their ability to regulate problem-solving processes. The University of Turin has adopted problem solving digital methodologies using a virtual learning environment integrated with an advanced computing environment, automatic assessment and a web conference system. This set of technologies promote interaction among students and help teachers guide and coach their students in creating, conjecturing, exploring, testing and verifying. In the Erasmus+ Project SMART – Science and Mathematics Advanced Research in good Teaching - the University of Turin shared these methodologies with other European partners (Strategic Partnership Key action). The aim of this exchange of best practices is to obtain Mathematics and Science teachers who are more involved in the methodology and consequently students who are better equipped to develop coherent mental representations of problem situations, more flexible in incorporating feedback and in reflecting. In the paper, examples of interactive material produced and tested in the Project are presented and the results of the experience are discussed.