For Angela Fumasoni, a community is a space where individual experience becomes shared knowledge
A professional community can broaden the school’s horizons, especially when it allows us to step beyond the boundaries of our own context and meet teachers and trainers working in different areas, with different experiences, but with the same drive for educational innovation.
This is the perspective of Angela Fumasoni, a primary school teacher, digital facilitator at the Istituto comprensivo Paesi Orobici in Sondrio, CS First trainer and co-author, with Fondazione Mondo Digitale, of the book Tinkering, Coding and Making published by Erickson. For four years, Angela has been part of the La Scuola del Noi community, which she describes as a space for constructive dialogue, capable of transforming individual experience into shared knowledge.
Her responses strongly highlight the value of co-design as a high-level form of in-service training: not a refresher course detached from daily practice, but field research arising from peer exchange, tested in the classroom, verified with children, and capable of becoming an open resource for other teachers. This is how the ‘school of doing’ takes the place of the traditional lesson, integrating coding, digital citizenship, sustainability and the active use of technology.
Educational responsibility in the age of artificial intelligence is also at the heart of the interview. For Angela, the community helps to interpret the ongoing transformations with greater confidence, to discuss new challenges and to build compasses to guide students through the complexities of the present. A school that is more open, collaborative and capable of transforming every challenge into an opportunity for collective growth.
What professional or personal need prompted you to join the community of teachers at the Scuola del Noi?
I first came across Fondazione Mondo Digitale in 2017 when I won the Global Junior Challenge, and I immediately began a valuable collaboration. It was an honour for me to join the Scuola del Noi community, which brings together teachers and trainers from all over Italy and serves as a space for constructive dialogue that is essential for developing digital citizenship skills useful to teachers who wish to innovate and enrich themselves professionally. Bringing together people from different backgrounds generates innovative teaching solutions that a small local context would not produce.
How has participating in the community changed the way you view your role as a teacher?
Thanks to co-design and the new ideas that have emerged from the Scuola del Noi, my way of working has evolved, enriched by the experiences of others. I believe that co-design is the highest form of in-service training: the exchange of new ideas and the discussion of different methodologies to be brought into the classroom are stimulating experiences that ensure field research can be applied in one’s own classes.
How does the project help you prepare your students for the present, not just the future?
The challenge for contemporary schools is to provide ‘compasses’ to navigate complexity. Project proposals integrating technology and digital citizenship have enabled a shift from passive use of technology to active and responsible creation. The children have responded positively to the practical activities; in particular, through coding courses, they have activated complex cognitive processes, acquiring transferable skills useful for navigating the ever-changing reality of the present.
Have you adapted a teaching practice thanks to the community?
The evolution of my approach to teaching has changed in tandem with the new ideas emerging from the Scuola del Noi; the ‘school of doing’ has replaced the traditional ‘school of lessons’. The proposed projects have been implemented in classrooms, evaluated, selected and incorporated into the documentation of the published worksheets (Integrated Digital Citizenship and Sustainability in Primary Education – Fondazione Mondo Digitale – Erickson), giving other teachers the opportunity to use them in their teaching.
What sense of responsibility do you feel today as a teacher in the age of AI?
Within the community, we tackle emerging issues and reflect together on how to address them in our daily work. The opportunity to exchange ideas with motivated, active and collaborative teachers is an added value that is not easy to find in smaller settings. Right from the start, we have tackled issues related to AI; the courses run by Fondazione Mondo Digitale have allowed us to exchange ideas and begin to envisage common approaches. So I can say that I feel more confident with the support of the Community.
If the Scuola del Noi didn’t exist, what would be missing from your journey?
Knowing that I work with the Scuola del Noi reassures me and allows me to open up to different realities, going beyond the small town where I work and fostering the creation of new and engaging pathways.
What would you say to a teacher who thinks they ‘don’t have time’ to join a community?
As a teacher in the Community, I don’t consider being part of it a waste of time at all; each of us transforms our individual experience into shared knowledge, turning every challenge into an opportunity for collective growth. New ideas take shape and we are enriched by good practices to apply in our daily lives.
