Abstract:

Latest international reports reveal that there is an increased therapeutic and social interest for health resorts’ spa treatments, which have led to the development of international balneary tourism. The present paper presents the project e-TRAVELSPA: e-Training for Wellness in SPA Services (EU LLP / Leonardo da Vinci – Transfer of Innovation, Ref. No. LLP-LdV-ToI-2011-RO-02). e-TRAVELSPA is an transnational Leonardo da Vinci Transfer of InNovation project focused on improvement/updating/equal chances to knowledge/harmonization in training of SPA and hydrotherapy specialists. The project represents a continous education approach by interactive on-line education in consultancy with acreditated programme tutors, assuring a secured final evaluation. The project developed a complex Web site in English and partners languages and a virtual health educational center (http://www.e-edumed.ro/), providing on-line education and training materials by an interactive lifelong learning platform. 4 interactive modules for organization and management of SPA and wellness centres, Training for SPA Therapists, Applications of massage within balneary resorts and Applications of hydrokinetotherapy within balneary resorts were developed. The project main goal was to assure interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary complex approach of wellness strategies in European context of promoting quality of life, combining natural spa treatment’s factors in correlation with the possibilities of specific physical therapeutic interventions to SPA profile.

Moodle is the open source E-Learning platform implemented for the delivery of the online courses and to host the PBL repository. The e-learning platform hosts asynchronous online courses - educational materials in a traditional style of presentation, PPT and course notes (text and images), questions and tests associated with each section, multimedia lessons that include sections with commented video images.

Conclusion: Sharing experiences and practices of specialist from different countries in a transnational/international context by creating a network platform that will connect partners, beneficiaries (clients and institutions) but also involving target groups and other potential users with an ultimate goal of increasing the dimension and quality of wellness and quality of life in SPA services.

Keywords:

On line education, SPA e-learning, problem based learning.