Online Continued Education - Overcoming Distances and Differences

Brazil is a country with the world’s 5th largest territory and 6th largest population. The distance between its largest centers (like São Paulo, Latin America’s biggest metropolis) and remote regions (like the Amazonia) is increased by cultural, social and economic inequities between and within regions. The access to professional improvement can be expensive and limited. Distant education allows for better access to updated knowledge but also has to overcome challenges referring to access to technology, network and use of resources. The use of distant education in CSD for professional improvement was presented as an alternative in Brazil in 2009 and became essential with the COVID-19 Pandemic. In this period, several educational institutions adapted to the online education and trained students and professionals to online practice. The continued education centers made possible the access to updated knowledge for professionals from remote areas. Knowledge production reached an increasing rhythm and demands careful consideration of what is really evidence-based. This presentation describes the experience of three continued education centers with more than 15 years of experience in online teaching. They are located, respectively in Southeast (Sao Paulo), South and North regions of Brazil. Classes are usually live and interactive, allowing real-time interactions. The students can refer to recorded classes for latter review for a limited time period. This way, students can also access the classes according to their schedule. During a short time this type of professional education faced some resistance and little thrust, but it was overcome by positive experience and identification of logistic advantages. The flexibility of alternatives is an important aspect. The three centers offer programs that vary from 3-hour workshops to 500-hour specialized training in several areas of CSD, like speech, language, voice, audiology, oral motor disorders, dysphagia and others. Online distance education, therefore, is an important alternative for professional growth in different contexts.