In-Person/Online Attendance at an Educational Technology Workshop. A Study on Student Teachers’ Perceptions at UniBg

This work presents the first phase of a descriptive study, realized at the University of Bergamo, which involved 102 student teachers participating in the “Educational Technology Workshop” of the degree course in Primary Education Sciences. The research objectives were: a. to describe student teachers’ perception of the training experience gained in person or online during the workshop; b. to verify whether the way in which the students attended—face to face/online—influenced their perception of teaching with respect to strengthening their digital skills. The data were collected through an “ad hoc” questionnaire on student teachers’ perceptions and were analyzed in a descriptive and correlational way. The survey revealed that the student teachers’ perceptions regarding the teaching methods of the workshop changed according to the way in which they participated—those attending face to face understood the alternation between lessons and exercises better than those attending online, who, conversely, grasped the transmissive aspect of the workshop meetings better. It also revealed that the method of participation did not seem to have influenced prospective teachers’ perception of their own digital skills. In general, university students’ positive perception of training activities adapted online after the COVID pandemic was confirmed, and it was discovered that future teachers attending online are slightly more sensitive to the teaching methods through which the workshop is carried out and the integration of the workshop with the other training activities of the entire degree course.