Digitalization of continuous teacher education in France

The rapid development of information and communication technologies and their use in the educational process have led to the necessity of improving teacher training in both digital skills and related pedagogical competencies. Due to the current situation, there is a need to study the experience of online resources for distance education of teachers in other countries of the world, which will help enrich the Russian practice of advanced training of teachers at all levels of education, and identify promising vectors for its development. 

The purpose of the article is to analyze the experience of organizing continuous distance education for teachers in France, where interesting developments have been accumulated over the past decade that can be used in domestic education. The methodological basis of the research was systematic, activity-based, competence-based, differentiated approaches. The materials for this study were based on information from scientific publications. Pedagogical journals, educational websites specializing in distance education for teachers of different levels of education published recommendations for teachers, working remotely and using ICT, and regulatory legal acts in the field of distance education. The article analyzes electronic educational resources that help French teachers improve their skills or gain new knowledge in a distance format. The functioning and content of digital platforms offered by various MOOCs are studied; the work of the University Pedagogy Service and Information and Communication Technologies for Education SUPTICE, the Center for Professional and Continuing Education, is analyzed; the M@gistère continuing education program, the Eduscol website, the Prim’ à Bord resource portal, the Canopé Network, the operator of continuous teacher training and education workers under the care of the Ministry of National Education of France, educational tools of the multinational corporation Google. The problems that should be eliminated in order to increase the effectiveness of continuous training of teaching staff are shown. The article concludes that the arsenal of distance continuous learning for teachers in France is quite diverse, it is a flexible form of professional knowledge expansion and provides a wide range of diverse educational materials. It was emphasized that continuing distance education programs are not the solution to all the problems that teachers have to face, passing on knowledge to their students in order to prepare them for life in a complex digital and rapidly changing world.

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