National and Kapodistrian University of Athens is one of the biggest and the oldest public institution of higher education in Greece, since it was founded in 1837. More than 40.000 undergraduate and 20.000 postgraduate students are attending the courses of the thirty-three University’s Departments.
The Educational Technology Lab (ETL) is part of the Department Pedagogy of the NKUA’s School of Philosophy. Under the direction of Prof. Chronis Kynigos, it aims to contribute to our knowledge of the ways in which learning processes can be upgraded in all kinds of human activity in the Information Society. The specific aims emerging from the Lab’s nineteen-year-old history and context of existence are:
- To contribute to our knowledge concerning ways in which we can use digital technologies for learning.
- To develop our understandings of learning and teaching processes made possible with the use of digital technologies.
- To contribute to the generation of a new ideology for school in the digital era.
- To contribute to the education of undergraduate and graduate student teachers.
- To offer professional development opportunity to in-service teachers and educators.
- To develop original ideas, digital media and materials for learning.
- To support the implementation of educational policy directed towards empowering teachers and students within the educational system.
ETL has taken major action in the field of education, with on site hands-on student work and Professional development for teachers and teacher educators, as well as in the field of applied research on learning, teaching and design processes generated in learning environments based on the use of digital media. It has a significant role in the consultation to educational institutions wishing to infuse the use of digital media as a medium for innovative learning and teaching practice, while is playing a leading part to educational policy for the establishment of new technologies in the educational system; in the past 20 years, Educational Technology Lab has engaged in several multi-organizational projects funded by the European Community, the Greek Ministry of Education and the Greek Ministry of Development (since over 2,000 Microworlds and Micro-Experiments were created under the supervision of ETL and enrich the interactive mathematical ebooks in the Digital School of the Greek Ministry of Education http://ebooks.edu.gr/new/, where can be accessible by all Greek students and teachers). Within the framework of European Projects the ETL developed new digital media for teaching and learning, while devised the «Exploratory activity plan based on new technologies», which is later established with the now known term «Scenario». The prediction of the forthcoming rapid development of digital technologies in 1990s and the confusion about what could be considered as educational software led to the pedagogical design of E-Slate, ETL’s first educational software. The design and development of educational software has always been and continues to be an important research field for ETL. Many Microworld kits were developed on E-Slate’s Platform, which were used in ETL’s researches within various European projects. Many years later ETL’s first web-based educational software comes to the fore:
