Digital Competence for Citizenship: Distance Learning Before and During the Covid-19 Emergency

The Covid-19 emergency is undoubtedly an exceptional situation that has forced us all to reshape and transform spaces, times and activities of all kinds. Even the school, driven by need and emergency, has re-thought its teaching practices through a re-evaluation of digital technology and organizational experimentation. An opportunity to keep relationships alive, beyond distance. The presented study analyzes the perceptions of a sample of secondary school teachers about online learning and the use of new technologies, comparing the teaching practices adopted in the pre-pandemic Covid-19 period, during the lockdown and during the return to presence. The results highlight both the critical issues that emerged during distance learning – digital divide, accessibility, workload, support for students with Special Educational Needs, the teacher-learner relationship, digital skills – and the positive aspects – flexibility, availability of tools, adaptability, innovation, student self-determination and self-regulation. This is all in line with a media education that allows the potential of digital devices to be exploited in education and to support the digital skills of teachers and pupils.