The course’s main objective is to introduce to teachers the use of online virtual experimentations and remote laboratories as well as inquiry-based science teaching techniques in order to help them upgrade their current teaching practices. These tools and techniques will facilitate them in engaging  their students  into science topics, in order to acquire scientific inquiry skills and experience the culture of doing science, under motivating circumstances, by undertaking active, guided, experimentation, carried out on both  basic and top-level scientific facilities.

The course will also strengthen its social cohesive and pan-European dimension by inviting participants to be part of a community of practice that will allow them to exchange ideas and materials with fellow teachers across Europe and introduce them to social tagging, educational metadata and on-line learning repositories. The repertoire of online labs and experimentations, and the social tools that will be presented in combination with the hands-on activities will facilitate the participants in learning how to deploy the vast collection of existing eLearning tools and educational resources and also how to integrate their own work into educational repositories and share it within a European community of practice.

Please find more information here.

The aim of the course is to support the development of European schools’ digital culture and teachers’ digital skills, so that they are able to understand the uses and applications of digital resources in school practice, and subsequently to benefit from digital content and technology solutions covering a wide range of areas: Science, Mathematics, ICT, Social Studies, Arts and Language Studies. This is envisaged to also promote the development of students’ key competences, with particular emphasis on problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration skills. Thus, teachers will not only be familiarized with a unique collection of open digital educational resources, but they will also be trained to link them with innovative pedadogical practices, such as using real world learning activities, implementing resource based and project-based approaches.

The resources to be used have demonstrated their efficacy in promoting problem-solving education and collaboration, i.e. lreforschools.eun.org, www.merlot.org, www.natural-europe.eu, www.organic-edunet.eu, ed.ted.com, www.osrportal.eu. These resources, although associated with a broad range of curriculum areas, do not impose a fixed curriculum but support a model that can be customised based on location and culture, as well as cross-disciplinary situations, being thus ideal to be used in the European context for differentiated instruction. Teachers will also be trained to appropriately select freely available ICT tools that suit their own needs in terms of planning, implementing and sharing pedagogical ideas, managing their classroom and organising the curriculum. This will further empower them to create effective project scenarios to use in the classroom, as well as in multiple environments such as face-to-face, online and other technology mediated learning. Such an approach is expected to enable all stakeholders to examine their own practices in the light of the best performing approaches.

Please find more information here.

The aim of the course is to increase the awareness of computer science teachers on the fact that programming is a core competence for advanced computer literacy and creative usage of modern tools and, thereby, making programming courses in secondary education creative and effective by particularly focusing on Educational Programming Languages (EPLs) and educatinal robotics. After a comprehensive analysis of a number of EPLs (e.g. SCRATCH, ALICE, Squeak-Etoys etc), the organizers of the course have selected SCRATCH for training teachers and enabling them to develop the programming skills of their students in a pedagogically-rich ways.

To this line, the objectives of the course are: to introduce SCRATCH, discuss its use in the classroom, have a hands-on experience with SCRATCH, present important issues related with the design of pedagogically-driven scenarios that will enable them to create their own learning activities encompassing objectives, intended learning outcomes, roles and the educational environment (e.g. tools and resources deployed). Pre-structured educational scenarios have been developed in order to provide assistance to the participants during the process of developing their own scenarios. Apart from these templates, relevant training material will be distributed in the form of scripts containing the steps that will be followed during the session and these will be either videos, text, scratch cards, or slides tutorials). On this basis, the proposed training course is anticipated to facilitate European computer science teachers to develop their skills by using student-centered pedagogical approaches that will enable them to engage actively with computer science teaching.

Please find more information here.

The course’s objective is to enhance science education by presenting the fabric of the cosmos as was shaped by scientific evidence and explanations through 400 years of scientific advancement. The course will focus on a) 17th century’s optics instruments (i.e. telescopes and microscopes) and how these instruments have influenced the making of modern science; b) 20th century’s telescopes and accelerators, which have probed the inner and outer boundaries of the matter and the universe; and c) 21st century’s facilities such as CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the new generation of space telescopes, which will provide answers to the yet open sub-atomic and cosmological questions.

Participants will familiarize themselves with a large amount of digital science education content, which currently exists in history-of-science museums, archives and science centers’ collections and digital repositories. Participants will develop skills in using learning technologies in modes and settings as diverse as a history-of-science museum visit, or a virtual tour in ATLAS-CERN. The integration of the past, present and future of the scientific endeavor will impart, to the school’s science curriculum, the dynamics of a common European scientific heritage, strong enough to address the challenges of tomorrow.

The course will also strengthen its socially cohesive and Europe-wide dimension by introducing the participating teachers/trainers to social-tagging learning objects, educational metadata and learning objects repositories, together with hands-on experiences on practical approaches and tools that are commonly used to support the learning object paradigm. To this end, the proposed training course is anticipated to facilitate European teachers and trainers in finding a way that will allow for integration of educational resources of the science centers and history-of-science museums to the science curriculum.

Please find more information here.

Science View will organize four training courses (one week in length each) entitled: "From traditional to digital classroom: Use Web2.0 tools & learn how to create your own e-Learning course". The objective of this course is to familiarize European teachers with enhanced ways to use authoring tools based on specific design principles and Learning Objects’ terminology. This means that the participants of this course will have the opportunity to gain great knowledge on how to involve tools, strategies and practical tips of utilizing storyboards and authoring tools into their teaching. Also, the participants will have the opportunity to gain great knowledge on how to involve tools, strategies and practical tips of utilizing web 2.0 perspectives into their teaching. The training course will provide European teachers with an introduction to Instructional design principles and specifications on how to design and develop eLearning courses and integrate into the courses Web2.0 tools, as well as with hands-on experiences on how to design material based on their student’s needs and pedagogical methods, with practical tips and case studies (from real life scenarios and pre-existing eLearning content). Under this scope, the participants will be familiarized with designing the content of an eLearning unit, comprehend its Learning objects and utilize available authoring and Web2.0 tools in practice. They will also create their own storyboards incorporating tools in their everyday activities based on the lesson’s objectives and final outcomes.

Please find more information here.

We are announcing 3 new Comenius and Gruntvig training events for June and July of 2013. The main objective of these programs is to introduce educators in the use of new methodologies for science teaching based in the use o modern tools and resources that rely on recent advances of science. The training events were prepared for an adult audience with interest in new methodologies to address science and science related topics using as a guideline real research examples, namely in the field of Astronomy and Space Research. More...

Universe Quest – Building Games for Education

17/06/2013 – 21/06/2013, New Castle upon Tyne, UK

A training event promoted in partnership with Learnit3D (http://www.learnit3d.com/)

This training event is based on new methodologies to address science and science related topics using as a guideline: Educational Games, Scientific Illustration and Astronomy. Games for education are considered nowadays one of the Holy Grail for engaging students and inspiring them in science topics. ICT and games are part of their daily lives and its pedagogical capability is overwhelming. The main objective of this training is to prepare teachers and adult trainers in the use of serious games for education and to provide practical examples of its power for addressing real data handling (Research Based Science Education) while promoting the learning of different science topics in a learn by doing approach.

Please find more information here:

Comenius -  PT-2013-105-001 (for teachers)

Gruntvig -  PT-2013-106-001 (for adult trainers)

Astronomy@MyBackPack

15/07/2013 – 19/07/2013, Cascais, Portugal

29/07/2013 – 02/07/2013, Volos, Greece

The advent of free science content on the web opened a whole new area for science education. Students can now learn mathematics, physics, geography, chemistry and other subjects while using real astronomy and space data, available for free on the internet. Participants will be introduced to an efficiently and well tested methodology that relies on the use of such resources to tackle school curriculum content. The programme is built to address the needs of schools ranging from easy access to computers and internet to those still not reached by these devices. The methodology is based in an IBSE approach and range from the manipulation of databases to the construction of observing devices using readily available material.

Please find more information here:

Comenius - PT-2013-104-002 (for teachers)

Gruntvig - to be announced soon (for adult trainers)

Astronomy@MyPC

08/07/2013 – 12/07/2013, Turku, Finland

29/07/2013 – 02/07/2013, Volos, Greece

This training program invests in ICT for science teaching using the inquiry based methodology. The main objective of this programme is to introduce educators in the use of new methodologies for science teaching. Themes are based in the use of modern tools and resources that rely on recent advances of science. The advent of free science content on the web opened a whole new area for science education. Students can now learn mathematics, physics, geography, chemistry and other subjects while using real astronomy and space data, available for free on the internet. Participants will be introduced to an efficiently and well tested methodology that relies on the use of such resources to tackle school curriculum content. The methodology is based in an IBSE approach and range from the manipulation of databases to the construction of observing devices using readily available material.

Please find more information here:

Comenius - PT-2013-103-002 (for teachers)

Gruntvig - to be announced soon (for adult trainers)

The main goal of these training session is to re-awake the interest for science in the young generation with inquiry-based methods. Renewing of the teaching of science is fulfilled through astronomy as a well-established source of motivation, and through the use of new Information and Communication Technologies - ICT. Involving teachers in a variety of research-based astronomical projects, we will excite, enthuse and motivate them to teach science/technology/maths. The training is intended to enhance basic competencies of teachers and develop higher level skills and expertise, primarily in ICT, maths and physics area. The EU-HOU project will provide the opportunity for trained teachers to get involved in stimulating international collaborations and to enthuse their pupils to study sciences/technology/maths at a higher level.

Please find more information here.