Fourteenth International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies

Abstract

In the context of COVID-19 restrictive measures, educational systems all over the world were called upon to operate in emergency, shifting teaching activities from the School Unit to the Internet. In Greece, schools and teachers were called upon to immediately, under extraordinary and urgent circumstances, replace classroom instruction with physical presence, with distance teaching. In this effort, the leading role was that of the teacher, but without the planning and organization required for the implementation of any online educational ecosystem. Thus, the broad response of teachers was combined with the manifestation of pedagogical concern about the feasibility of the project and its implications, both in the quality of the learning outcome and in the cultivation of values and practices of tolerance and inclusion. In this context, University of the Aegean, in collaboration with the Institute of Educational Policy, designed and offered a fast-paced MOOC training program for Distance School Education. In this paper, the theoretical, pedagogical, organizational, and technological framework of the program are presented, together with outputs from the reflection and feedback activities performed by the participating teachers.