What is Odysseia

**What is ODYSSEIA all about?**

“The challenge facing education today is to prepare citizens who are not merely literate, not merely equipped with specific knowledge and particular skills (that in any case will no longer prove adequate for a lifetime), but who moreover are in a position to learn by choosing what they wish to learn and what to read in order to learn it. For the only thing we know about the society in which today’s students will be living is that it will be different from today’s”.

As of 1996, the Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs, its scientific and administrative services (the Pedagogical Institute and the Directorate for Secondary Education Studies) along with the Academic Research Institute on Computer Technology (CTI) has mobilized a significant social force (53 companies, 57 university units, 18 museums and research institutes, 385 schools, 5.500 teachers and 100.000 students) in a far-sighted program, the Odysseia - Hellenic Schools in the Information Society Programme (under the Operational Programme for Education and Initial Vocational Training funded by the 2nd European Community Support Framework).

The Odysseia Programme is firmly founded on a comprehensive approach towards the new technologies. Computer science is addressed in such a way, so that the children perceive it not only as an independent scientific domain, but also as a very handy tool to be used every day in teaching, learning and communicating.

Thus, we approach and use computer science in a manner that reflects the true spirit of the Information Society: the new technologies are not to be seen as something detached and exceptional, but as an integral part of daily life.

The Odysseia programme created a critical mass of school communities in Secondary Education, which integrate new educational practices in the learning process by capitalizing on Information and Communication Technologies.

The Odysseia programme involves three basic lines of action:

Training and support for teachers of all specializations: in-school, continuous and directed to the teaching practice. It is provided by specially educated teachers.
Setting up the necessary infrastructure: fully equipped computer labs, connected to the Panhellenic School Network and technical support for the schools.
Development of appropriate educational material: development of new software and the localization or adaptation of existing, international, exploratory and multi-disciplinary educational software.