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The focus of the teacher training programme is on the general use and the educational utility of Computer and Network Technologies in the daily life of the school. Within the framework of this training programme all teachers will acquire a general understanding of how the New Technologies can be used in the classroom, as well as specific knowledge about how they can take full advantage of these technologies in teaching their own particular subjects. The instructors are there to help the teachers learn to use the New Technologies. Which teachers can take part in this in-school training programme? In-school training programmes are open to all teachers in all the Odysseia schools. Which teachers will find this training most useful? The training programmes have been tailored to cover all the different subjects taught in the schools participating in the Odysseia Programme. The idea behind training teachers in the educational use of the New Technologies is not simply to familiarise them with the use of computers. The purpose of the training programme is to enable them to incorporate the New Technologies into their everyday teaching practice, whatever their particular subject may be. Teachers in all branches are entitled to training, since all school subjects can be enriched and enhanced through advanced methods of imparting and acquiring knowledge. This training is not addressed solely to teachers of Computer Science. On the contrary, it is addressed equally to teachers of “traditional” subjects who might perhaps be considered as having no connection to computer technologies. Why should a teacher take part in this in-school training programme? The reality of the school environment is aligned with the requirements of social reality, as this is taking shape within the framework of The Information Society; and it is the teachers who carry the most important role in promotioning this evolutionary step. In their performance of this task, teachers will need the support services provided by the in-school training programme offered within the framework of the Odysseia Programme. The benefits are multiple, both for the teachers and for their students, since the objective is not merely to familiarise all teachers with the use of computers but, and far more importantly, to enable them to enrich their teaching methods with alternative and original teaching and learning formats that will be attractive to their students. The in-school training provided will be useful to the teacher both in reinforcing the teacher to assume this role and, most importantly, in increasing the classroom possibilities available to the teacher and enabling the teacher to acquire a new teaching tool that will facilitate this task. What is a “training session” and where and how is it held? The training programme focuses on taking full advantage of the New Technologies in classroom teaching. For this reason particular emphasis is given to hands-on practice, which takes place in the computer lab. These practical training sessions find fertile ground in the 377 networked computer labs that have been set up in the Odysseia schools. The content of each session will focus either on horizontal instruction (basic steps in learning to handle and operate a computer, as well as more general teaching-oriented instruction in taking advantage of the New Technologies in the classroom) or on vertical instruction, that is, more specialized training tailored to an individual subject. These training sessions may be held either during school hours or at other times, depending on the requirements and the programme of each individual school. The content of training sessions is based on a flexible general programme that can be adapted to accommodate the needs and interests of each individual teacher. How long do these sessions last? Each training session lasts 2-3 hours. The teacher training programme covers an entire school year, and is intended to develop "life-long" learning skills which will always be exploitable by teachers in the future, to take full advantage of the educational value of the constantly evolving New Technologies and of all the possibilities offered by the school computer lab, to the benefit of classroom teaching. Who are these instructors? The instructors in charge of teacher training in the Odysseia schools have been specifically trained for this purpose. They are all teachers who have been selected by the Ministry of Education for training under the Odysseia training programme. What sort of training have the instructors had? The trainee instructors are teachers who have already accumulated significant experience in both Further Education and the New Technologies. The special one-year post-graduate training programme, carried out in participating Greek Universities, covers both the required theoretical instruction and the intensive practical training necessary to familiarize teachers fully with a variety of teaching software and educational activities relating to the everyday reality of the classroom. In-school teacher training in New Technologies: what does the future hold in store for us? In the framework of The Information Society Programme, the goal is essentially – and this is not impracticable - to provide computer training for the majority of the teaching profession over the course of the next four years. To this end, the Odysseia training projects are designed to train a continuous stream of new instructors in different subject areas, who will in turn be able to provide further training to more and more teachers all across Greece. In addition, classroom teachers will have an opportunity to develop “life-long” learning skills, which means that with these skills they will always be able to organise their teaching programmes as needed in the future based on the use of the most suitable new teaching tools, software, teaching plans, etc., which will be constantly evolving.The basic objective of this project is to enable all the teachers in every secondary school in Greece to enjoy the same level of training services, so that they can develop their teaching activities to the highest possible level. Questions and Answers from Instructors The task this core group of trained instructors has undertaken - namely, to facilitate the successful incorporation, by all the teachers in the Odysseia schools, of computer and network technologies in the teaching of the entire secondary school curriculum - is an extremely important one. Through their day-to-day contact with the Odysseia schools a series of questions have emerged, the answers to which will certainly contribute to the cultivation of a climate of mutual confidence and understanding. These questions may be grouped under the following headings: |