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The EDEN Open Classroom 2015 Athens is the initiative of EDEN supported by the ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Union. The publications reflect the authors’ views, the EACEA and the European Commission are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information they contain.

Livestream Recordings: watch the Youtube Playlist

On the web	Downloadables	Information
http://eden.ea.gr/	Programme	Background
Keynote presentations	Proceedings	Programme
Proceedings online	Best Practice Initiative Award Winner	Themes
Picture Gallery		About Open Classroom

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Background

EDEN and Ellinogermaniki Agogi co-organised a three-day international conference in September 2015 in Athens.

The event earmarked the next occasion in the EDEN Open Classroom Conference series with the involvement and support of thematically significant EU co-funded projects. The Conference incorporates the final event of the Digiskills project, a European project demonstrating ways to involve school communities in innovative teaching and learning practices, and empower teachers and trainers to use, share and exploit unique resource. The timing also made several of the conference activities the first steps in the sustainability of the Open Discovery Space project, one of the ever-largest EU co-funded educational networking initiative.

The hosting projects utilised their teacher communities and resources in the interest of a professional event, offering free training opportunities and promoting their best teaching practices. The trainings provided were acknowledged by certifications. Based on its continuing success, the EDEN “Synergy” strand was weaved into the programme in Athens as well, adding a “project magnet” effect to the conference and enabling new partnerships to be created and old ones to be strengthened and expanded, thanks to the active participation of a diverse audience.

The language of the conference was English, where necessary, translation was provided.

Invitation

EDEN has been organising the Open Classroom Conferences since 1997 with the support of the OCLR Working Group. The 2015 Athens Conference addressed the needs and necessities in search for Innovation in School Education.

Developments in learning innovation and the impact of ICT on school education have presently been realised through many policy actions, programme initiatives and projects. At the same time, socio-economic challenges and the recent, often critical scenarios ? social mobility, migration, globalisation, multi-culture structures ? change the mandate of what we call Open School Education.

The search for new, more effective school structures, and the overcoming of broader challenges that societies are facing in their way towards the Knowledge Economy, is uninterrupted. The demand is increasing for upgrade of quality, in order to meet the needs for new competences and skills. It is proven that learning personalisation helps foster motivation and engagement, so learning is becoming more and more individualised and self-managed even in institutional settings.

The EU has adopted policy initiatives like the Opening Up Education and formulated ambitious goals in the EU2020 programme, for the school education sector as well. Still, most Member States are striving to introduce innovation through resisting structures and hindering factors.

Transforming systems to open environments will necessitate significant amendments to the existing teacher profiles in order to run a school system successfully. Through its range of presentations and activities the conference aims to contribute to the social, political and research dialogue, addressing the new complexities, contexts and resources. The exploration of what makes school education innovative will be enhanced by practical activities demonstrating and demystifying those 21st century teacher skills and competences that are so often regarded as essential but intimidating.

To serve this double purpose the conference showcased and celebrated the excellence of teachers as “change agents” from all over Europe who ? having been involved with EU projects like ODS and DigiSkills ? developed (often from scratch) and/or improved their digital skills and competences by participating in online trainings and face to face summer schools, workshops and competitions. All teachers yet novice to these innovative projects learned from these inspirational best practices and exploit the active community members’ experiences and achievements.

During the 3 days participants benefitted from professional development opportunities by participating in a selection of the projects’ most popular trainings and webinars in a face to face setting, while the Scholarly Contributions Day of the programme offered strands of paper presentations and Synergy sessions showcasing research and validated practices.

Themes

• ICT and digital media use in primary and secondary education
• Developing and improving learning to learn competences
• Learner support in ICT enhanced learning
• Open Educational Resources and their use in education
• Teacher training
• Learners’ motivation, needs and perceptions
• Learning psychology, Learning software ergonomics
• Learning experience and collaborative-collective learning patterns
• The power and pleasure of sharing, fun of communicating in learning
• Learning as self-expression and the development of personality
• ICTs as resources for innovations to improve learning experience
• Virtual reality, Games for learning, simulations, media rich solutions
• Quality of learning and human resource management, staff development, teacher training
• Measurement of learning effectiveness
• Learning quality and the quality management in education
• Learning quality and experience for disadvantaged student groups

Keynotes and Programme

The conference approach and themes imply openness in choosing the topics and applying interactive session formats. Keynote sessions were live-streamed on Youtube. Recordings will be available soon.

PPT presentations of keynote speeches by experts and educational policy-makers with specific focus on hot topics in innovation in educational settings:

Sotirios Glavas

President of the Greek Institute of Educational Policy, Greece
Welcome Address

Nelly Arvaniti

School counsellor for Physical Education in Eastern Attica, Greece
Welcome Address

Demetrios G Sampson

Senior and Golden Core Member IEEE, Professor of Digital Systems in Learning and Education, Dept of Digital Systems, University of Piraeus, Adjunct Research Fellow, Information Technologies Institute, Center for Research and Technology, Editor-in-Chief, Educational Technology & Society Journal, Greece
Smart Educational Decision Support Systems for School Complexity Leadership: A Research Agenda for School Analytics (click for the PPT)

John Garofalakis

Computer Technology Institute and Press “Diophantus”, Greece
Enhancing Teachers’ Digital Skills (click for the PPT)

Franz Bogner

Head of Department, Didactics of Biology, University of Bayreuth, Germany
Open Educational Resources for Enviromental Education (click for the PPT)

Rosa Doran

NUCLIO / GHOU / Portuguese Astronomical Society, Portugal
Developing Effective Teachers Communities

Alan Bruce

Universal Learning Systems, Ireland
Open to What?: the Future of European Education in the Digital Revolution (click for the PPT)

António Teixeira

EDEN President, Universidade Aberta, Portugal
Opening Up The Classroom – How Inspirational Ideas, Creative Teachers and Innovative Tools are Changing Schools (click for the PPT)

Programme and Proceedings

The full program in pdf format can be downloaded from here. The Proceedings with all contributions and descriptions of good practices by innovative teachers are available here.

The programme started on Friday afternoon. with the first keynote speakers’ session followed by a Welcome Reception. On Saturday, innovative teachers presented their work about a wide variety of subject from physics through safe internet use to supporting green careers.

The programme included Scholarly Contributions, giving the floor to academics and professionals to present their research and validated practices, these paper presentations introduced achievements, reviews of existing results including empirical or theoretical studies, policy reviews, case studies or project outputs.

Throughout the conference, participants could choose and participate in various open schooling and teacher training events (see the titles in the programme table below).

The Synergy Strand aimed to facilitate the sharing of project deliverables, research findings and experiences, offering the participants an open platform to develop new or extended collaboration ideas and plans, to create highly beneficial partnerships by engaging the conference audience in interactive working group activities.

Start	End	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday
9:00	9:30		Lessons Learnt from Large Scale Innovation Initiatives implemented in European Schools		EDEN Papers D1 | D2 | D3
9:30	10:00
10:00	10:30
10:30	11:00				Coffee Break
11:00	11:30		Coffee Break	Inspiring Science Education: Introduction and Interactive Demonstration	“Open to What?: the future of European Education in the digital revolution” Keynote followed by Open Panel Discussion – “Opening up the Classroom – How inspirational ideas, creative teachers and innovative tools are changing schools” Introducing the EDEN badges and Best Practice Initiative Award Ceremony
11:30	12:00		Innovative Teachers as Change Agents: Their Stories
12:00	12:30				Presentation of the AESOP (Advanced Electronic Scenarios Operating Platform)
12:30	13:00			Coffee Break
13:00	13:30		Lunch Break	T.2.1: Social Media for Teaching and Learning T.2.2: Designing for Learning and Inclusion	Lunch Break
13:30	14:00
14:00	14:30		T.1.1: Responsible Use and Cybersafe Behavior T.1.2: Green Ideas 2015 T.1.3: Fighting Against Bullying and Discrimination T.1.4: How to Apply for E+ KA1 Grant T.1.5: Big Ideas of Science		T.3.1: Using Open Badge Packs to Support Teaching Across the Curriculum T.3.2: ProsocialLearn
14:30	15:00
15:00	15:30	Registration		Coffee Break
15:30	16:00			EDEN Papers C1 | C2
16:00	16:30		Coffee Break		Closing Address from the EDEN President Farewell Reception
16:30	17:00		EDEN Synergy Session
17:00	17:30
17:30	18:00	Welcome Address and Keynote Panel
18:00	18:30		Award Ceremony 1: Awarding the 18 presenting teachers
18:30	19:00
19:00	19:30
19:30	20:00	Welcome Reception
20:00	20:30

Conference Publication

Accepted contributions are published both in print and on the EDEN Portal in the ISBN-identified Conference Proceedings. The Proccedings is also downloadable from here .

Registration and Travel Arrangements

The registration has been closed. If you have any question concerning your registration, please consult the Conference Secretariat at athens@eden-online.org.

The delegates had access to all conference facilities, the printed ISBN-identified Conference Proceedings (including the Synergy “Book of Projects”), the Welcome Reception (18 September), all lunches and refreshments during the 3 days (19-21 September) of the conference.

Registered delegates’ hotel arrangement and conference venue transfer was supported by the travel Agency NIKAIA TRAVEL.

Social Events

Welcome Reception

 

The Welcome Reception was at 19:30 on Friday in the school premises, Ellinogermaniki Agogi S.A.

Conference Dinner

The social dinner took place on Sunday 20 September at 20:30  at a traditional tavern in the Plaka area, whithin walking distance of the Acropolis.

 

 

 

Deadlines

Presenters’ Registration: 31 August

Detailed Programme: Early September

Registration closes: 15 September

Conference Dates: 18-21 September

Contact and Disclaimer

The expenses of attending the conference (travel and accommodation) are the responsibility of the author(s) or presenter(s) of accepted papers. The organisers do not offer funds to assist prospective authors.

Would you need further assistance, do not hesitate to contact the Conference Secretariat at athens@eden-online.org.