Basic Data

Sector: Secondary Education

Organisations name: Greek School Network (GSN)

Name of contact person: Professor Lazaros MERAKOS

Address: Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Athens, 15784 Athens, Greece

Phone / Fax: + 30 210 7275323/+30 210 7275601

e-mail: merakos@di.uoa.gr

web address: www.sch.gr

The Organisation

The Greek School Network (GSN) has as objective to create a national infrastructure for the elementary and secondary Education: interconnect Greek schools and the administrative offices of the Ministry of Education into an educational Intranet and provide and support advanced telematics services to the school communities. The project establishes a network infrastructure which:

• Supports, develops and renews the learning process in elementary and secondary education
• Offers teaching and learning through communication and collaboration
• Allows flexible information search related to the educational procedure
• Gives the possibility of exchanging information among people geographically distributed
• Gives the possibility to schools and teachers to develop their educational content.

The project is in full operation phase with plans towards more advanced service that includes e-learning and online collaboration.

The Beginning

The Greek School Network Project (1999 - 2006) has been designed and developed with the objective to provide an innovative environment for application, evaluation and usage of new educational methods, by using ICT technologies and e-learning applications. Essentially, the Project responded to Primary and Secondary Education institutions’ requirements for innovative educational methods (by leveraging the potential of e-learning technologies and applications), access to digital libraries content and collaboration between distributed groups of users. GSN infrastructure development is funded by the Second and Third Community Support Framework (Operational program for the Information Society www.infosoc.gr), while Project operational costs are supported by National funds

The Objectives

Main objectives of the GSN refer to:

• Creation of a national infrastructure for innovative education methods and practices
• Connection of all the schools in an educational Intranet
• Connection of all the administrative offices of the Ministry of Education (including the administrative units located within schools)
• Provision and support advanced telematic services.
• Support the needs of the users of GSN services

The connection of schools and administrative units takes place simultaneously with the upgrade of telecommunication links to the Internet and with the provision of new advanced services to the users. The total number of connected units (educational and administrative) is over than 8.000. The interconnection of the educational units of the secondary education has been completed in December 2001, in accordance with eEurope-2002 target-plans. Also, more than 3.500 teachers have acquired personal account for access to the services of GSN, after registering through the web site www.sch.gr.

The Technology

Various technologies and open-source solutions are used at the different levels of network/application hierarchy, from the backbone network to user interface:

Backbone network: GSN uses Greek Research & Technology network, GRNET, with 7 entrance points and total capacity over than 40 Mbps.

Distribution network: The Distribution network consists of 51 nodes (one in each prefecture): 9 main nodes, 42 secondary nodes, equipped with 75 routers, 80 servers, a large number of telecommunication circuits and the appropriate software. These nodes are located in central installation points of the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization in each prefecture.

Access network: Is the part of the network, which interconnects educational and administrative units with the nearest node – using a variety of access technologies (xDSL, Wireless junctions, analog (M.1020) or digital leased lines, dial-up over ISDN or PSTN, etc.).

School Laboratory: In School Laboratories, computing devices and Ethernet networking equipment are installed. This equipment consists of a powerful server (with operating system Windows NT, 2000 or XP Server), approximately 10 multimedia stations (with operating system Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP or Linux), a color printer etc. The Administration Offices use more powerful networking equipment and interconnect through a high-speed line of 1 – 10 Mbps. This equipment provides besides the basic network services, the possibility of voice transmission through the school network.

In addition, GSN uses open-source content management tools to build portal functionality and provides a series of administration and support tools to 12 GSN nodes that, in turn, provide network administration and develop, applications software and e-learning tools for the project needs

The Resources

The Project has been designed as a Ministry of Education initiative and implemented in collaboration with 10 Greek Universities and 2 Research Centers (12 local nodes in total), that provide network administration and develop the necessary applications software and e-learning tools. As backbone network is used the infrastructure of the Greek Research and Technology Network (www.grnet.gr), which is also provides the Internet access to Greek Universities and Research communities.

The users

In order to maintain the educational orientation of the network, its users are certified individuals, educational or administrative entities of the National Education. In particular, the users are divided in the following categories:

• Schools :
  At least one user account have been provided to all middle grade education schools and 92% of first degree education schools.
• Administrative units :
  At least one user account has been provided to more than 2.282 administrative units of National Education.
• Educational staff :
  The Greek Schools Network offers fully personalized access to all educational staff, with the dial-up service being broadly used under certain terms.
• Students :
  Network access is provided to students through the school laboratories. In addition, pilot personalized access is offered to second grade students of Achaia and Corinthian Prefectures.
• Administrative staff :
  as with educational staff

Some problems and solutions

• School Laboratories (dedicated spaces within schools for using computers) instead of computers in every class
• Non-sufficient educational content (up to now)
• Incomplete training of educational personnel

Progress in GSN life-cycle targets the creation of rich educational content and the provision of advanced collaboration and e-learning services

Transferability

The project has the potential to be deployed in other countries, at a regional or national level. Network deployment and distributed management and development structures seem to be the more interesting project aspects.

Innovation

Use of ICT technologies and applications in traditional education activities is always a source of innovation by itself

Content

What are the topics that are covered in your case?

The topics are covered are the majority of topics in secondary education curriculum in Greece.

What disciplines are taught?

Secondary Education disciplines

Setting

Please indicate whether your approach is user-centered or rather tutor-centered.

In some cases approach is user centered but in majority of cases approach is driven by curriculum. There is a lack of skills among trainers to develop and support user centered learning.

Do you offer some support (technical or organisational) for learners to look back, to reflect, to debrief, to abstract from their experiences that they have felt and thought and learned?

Technically is possible but is upon organization to offer this option. Up to now it’s not offered officially.

Do you also use the LMS in the classroom?

There isn’t use of LMS in classroom except some very special cases.

Do you combine classroom time with online learning (blended learning)?

It not allowed by regulations yet.

Do you offer the users collaborative acitivies? Please state how you manage social interaction.

Yes there are collaborative acitivies and managed through MOODLE social activities

Do you teach concepts as well as practical knowledge?

Except ICT’s the concepts are taught

What do your learners have in common?

Secondary education students

What proportion of learners have sufficient previous experience in using computers for learning?

Less than 5%

Are differing levels of student’s previous experience of the subject area an issue in your teaching practise?

No there isn’t such an issue in this case.

What is your approach to learning i.e. constructivist, cognitive, structuralist, or other?

Cognitive and sometimes social constructivism.

What are your plans for the future?

How would you like to develop your elearning practise in the future?

• More and better content
• Train the trainers
• Support blended learning in classroom