1. LAUNCHING A “DISTANCE EDUCATION PROGRAM” IN A “SITUATED LEARNING” ENVIRONMENT Emine Meral Inelmen and Erol Inelmen* Department of Medical and Surgical Science, Division of Geriatrics, University of Padua, Italy * Bogazici University-Bebek-Istanbul,Turkey

2. Introduction Situated Learning Environment learning “while” doing closely supervised Distance Education Programs

3. Literature Survey According to Bates and Poole: We educational professional should “sense” the political, economical, social and cultural changes Technology has moved very fast in the last decade as can be witnessed in the proliferation of Internet Cafes.

5. Case Study Missione Didactica Calendario Supporto ◊ - ◊ Farma-On-Line Notizie Risorce Contatta

6. Lessons Learned A bonus system was adopted Every contribution was evaluated between 5 to 50 points to be accumulated in the “bonus pocket” that was integrated with the evaluation of other assignments. Out of 43 participants 10 did not contribute, 19 contributed up to 100 points, 10 contributed up to 200, 4 contributed more than 300 (up to 775 maximum).

7. Future Vision informal (in a traditional setting), social (working in a group), individual (personalized training), community (shareholders learn together), action (learning meets practice), organizational (embedded knowledge) and ubiquitous (everywhere/anytime) learning.

8. Conclusion Educational stakeholders (instructors, administrators, citizens, employers, providers, politicians and parents) should support change

9. Acknowledgement Prof. Claudio Dandi who showed the participants of EDEN 2006 in several contributions how “civic activity” can help in remodeling DISTANCE EDUCATION

10. References INELMEN, E. (2000) “Training Teachers for Open Classroom Collaborative Work” EDEN, 4th Open Classroom Conference, Barcelona, (Spain), 20-21 November 2000, pp. 220-225. BATES, A.W. (Tony) and POOLE, G. (2003) Effective teaching with technology in higher education: foundations for success / San Francisco, CA: Jossey- Bass.