E-learning as educational tool in emergency and disaster medicine teaching.

E-learning is a new project for education based on the adoption of new computerised, multimedia and telematic technologies. Its application has deeply changed the concept of a teacher-based teaching to a student-centred educational project. It offers a great flexibility in the educational methodology, in the administration of contents, in the synchronous and/or asynchronous interaction between teachers and students, in the organisation and in the structure of the course, in the educational plans, in the support, the tracking and the evaluation of the student. E-learning could represent a great resource and a possible revolution in the concept of education and in the field of medical education as well. In some specific fields of application, as Emergency and Disaster Medicine, where the interaction between the student, the teacher and the patient, even if of great importance, are difficult to obtain in a quiet setting and have a lot of organizing, technical and economic troubles, e-learning approach could find a fertile field of application. In this paper we present a new program of educational activities we started in the field of Emergency and Disaster Medicine together with a review of the history of the instructional design and related technologies, ranging from the development of computer aided instruction to modern e-learning applications as teaching methodologies, and their impact on pedagogic and operative aspects.