Abstract:

This study was based on the necessity of improving health, tourism and wellness educational programmes by providing update knowledge according to the profile of qualification in this tender area of services. We also addressed the needs of developing new training methods, built on the key principles of the most relevant EU models, capturing and classifying the best practices within and across member states with the respective procedures, instruments, guidelines and standards.

The aims of the project E-TRAWELLSPA, LLP-LdV-ToI-201-RO-022/2011-1-RO1-LEO05-15314 were to implement e-learning methods in health education, thereby enhancing the attractiveness of training, to provide interactive multimedia presentations, to access up-to-date new achievements and to create an interactive model of learning that is useful for health, tourism and wellness professionals within European Union (economic, tourism, wellness and patient health care).

The objective of this innovated and new training model was to support participants in the acquisition and use of knowledge, skills and qualifications by ensuring validation and recognition of new competencies available in EU. In the same time the program offered flexibility in time and location and unified the teaching styles by using multimedia material with the participation of specialists from different countries, assuring cooperation, sharing experience, harmonization of curricula in health, wellness and tourism education.

In order to improve the impact of learning process on the target group and to assure the sustainability of the e-TRAWELLSPA outcomes, we decided to use an open e-source: Moodle. The structure of this website allows external links related to EU e-learning process, section open resources, and practical guidelines for specialists, self-evaluation, online communication with tutors and specialists, case studies and good practices exchange.

The hall process of delivery the training support was divided in 5 steps: research and reporting highlighted needs in wellness and spa education in participant countries, management handbook, report on the organization, management and dissemination of the project, website design, curricula design, publishing the content of the courses, disseminating of the results.

The program is a comprehensive on-line education and training system for health and wellness professionals with relevant interactive facilities and exploiting the continuous feedback from the target group. It includes the necessity of improving quality and innovation in health, tourism and wellness education training systems by improving and up-dating the educational programmes and qualifications according with the requirements and exigent within EU.

Learning objects are SCORM compliant, that means that they follow the most widespread international standards on e-learning, the learning objects are reusable in any LMS that are SCORM compliant, the tracking data are easy to handle, the process and the commercialization of results will be easier track after the project ends.

In conclusion, the program supported improvements and innovations providing learning for individuals from different European countries, encouraging self-direct learning and peer support, lowering the training costs, travel accommodation in university centers, and not least, improving of language skills.

Keywords:

e-learning, health education, self-direct learning.