Greece’s educational system has also entered the “big run” among European countries by conducting research, surveys and by coordinating discussions among experts and policy makers on the way through which STEM or STEAM education could be integrated in the curricula. Both STEM and recently STEAM concepts are becoming a subject of study in Greece whereas plenty of mainly private educational providers, as well as universities, schools and educational institutes are investing time and money focusing on the embedding of innovative educational approaches within the teaching and learning procedure.

The Greek Ministry of Education is providing educational institutions with general guidelines about the implementation of STEM and STEAM education. Notably enough, despite the fact that European countries recognize the usefulness of STEM education, however, funding and government support are mainly focused on higher education in the Greek Educational System as well.  (Kalolo, 2016:68)

Typical, Official, and Unofficial Implementation of STEAM in Greece

The fact is that remarkable progress has been made in terms of official and unofficial educational actions happening in Greek schools and universities. The Greek Ministry of Education has released plenty of Ministerial Decisions related to STEM education and the implementation of new ICT methods and tools. Nevertheless, there is no integration of STEM or STEAM education or robotics in the official curricula.

Smaller or bigger official initiatives towards STEM and STEAM education include easier access of high school students to higher education when they have won the first, second or third place in Balkan or International Students Competitions in STEM fields, such as Mathematics, ICT or Robotics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Also more hours are dedicated to ICT teachers in Primary Education after 2010 whereas in the official curricula of high school it is clearly written that “The general aim of the course «Informatics Applications» is «to expand the general computer education of students with an emphasis on developing skills and abilities in use of computational and network technologies as tools for learning, thinking, communication and collaboration» (F.151/220830/Α5/23-12-2016, F.3/609/60745/Γ1/28-5-2010 Greek Ministers’ of Education Decisions).

Furthermore, experimental schools are allowed to create thematic educational groups, in which innovative tools and methods could be implemented. Teachers and educators are free to co-operate with higher education institutions, and following that direction plenty of Greek teachers working in experimental schools choose STEM and/or STEAM as a thematic educational group. Finally “Competence Laboratories” are being introduced at the moment in a piloting phase, by the Greek Ministry of Education in co-operation with the Greek Institute of Education Policy as an innovative element of the new cutricula following the identified need of cultivating “21^st Century’s Competences”.

Finally, official licenses and sponsorships are granted for relevant competitions by the Greek Ministry of Education, in accordance with its internal terms and regulations for running contests under its auspices. The Educational Robotics Competition has run under its auspices, whereas several festivals and robotics competitions are running with the support of the Greek Ministry of Education such as World Robotics Olympiad, Students ICT Conference, Students Robotics Festivals, Regional Conferences of Computational and Mathematical Thinking supported by Regional Directorates of Education, Grand Prix of Natural Sciences, etc.

Good STEM and STEAM Practices in Greece

Last but not least several STEM European Projects are being implemented by Greek Schools of Primary and Secondary Education, as well as Higher Education Institutes participating in strategic partnerships and integrating autonomously several of their elements in the daily teaching and learning process.

Such projects implementing good practices are:

• ROBOESL-EDUMOTIVA-European Lab for Educational Technology
• FIND: Future Innovators, New Discoveries
• Addressing underachievement in STEAM education through real product design and making practices
• Developing Innovative Science Outreach for Vocational Education to Encourage STEM Careers and Education
• Steamon

Furthermore, important STEM and STEAM-oriented initiatives are taking place in Greece mainly by higher institution synergies. Namely the  Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS) comprised by 31 Universities and Research Centers is co-ordinating nationally the Scientix Project, and numerous STEM good practices are available to educators through its annual conference. Best practices for mentoring and training STEM students to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to connect their learning to real-world problems are also provided by the ambitious initiative of HI-STEM and the Universities of Patras and Athens. Finally, several private educational organizations provide STEM Education courses with a STEAM perspective.

By Elena Sarlis and Spyridon Papadakis, Regional Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education of Western Greece

STEAMonEdu Project was presented on 22 May 2020 at the scientific webinar entitled “Integrating Computational Thinking-Computing and the Epistemology of STEM through the model of Computational Pedagogy”. It was a successful webinar and extraordinary in terms of participation –  it hosted 110 participants in the virtual room plus 340 participants on youtube livestreaming.

Dr. Achilleas Kameas and Dr. Spyridon Papadakis from DAISSy Research Group – CTI, coordinator of STEAMonEdu project, provided the participants with all the necessary information on the ways a teacher, an educator, or a researcher can get actively involved in the STEAMonEdu European Community. They also outlined the benefits and opportunities of being an active member of the STEAMonEdu online platform, which has been recently launched.

The Regional Educational Center of the Regional Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education of Western Greece, as an official public educational training provider of the Greek Educational System helped the participants – educators of different disciplines (humanitarian scientists as well as natural sciences and new technologies scientists) to familiarize with good practices in the field of Computational Thinking and STEM or even STE(A)M education. The discussion around STEM and STEAM oriented good practices shifted the focus to the need of supporting the STEAMonEdu European Community through the online STEAMonEdu platform for further interaction and dialogue.

First, Achilles Kameas of CTI presented our STEAMonEdu project and emphasised the importance and potential of collaboration and synergies among our three projects.

CHOICE project was presented by Chiara Venturella of the co-ordinating organisation CESIE. CHOICE, which has the same timeframe as our STEAMonEDU for 2020-2021, aims to promote and improve STEM education at schools by designing innovative Open Educational Resources (OERs) collected in a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) that will increase the professional competences of teachers by equipping them with a STE(A)M approach of teaching.

The main outputs of CHOICE include:

• State of the Art study, Reflective practice case-study compendium, Framework for reforming STEM curricula & Comparative Piloting Analysis.

• Working guidelines “Non-formal education for promoting co-production of educational resources”, OERs & MOOC.

• Good practice tool CHOICE@SCHOOL, Policy recommendations.

Then Evita Tasiopoulou of European SchoolNet, coordinating organisation of the STE(A(M) IT, talked about their project, which started a bit earlier than the other two – in November 2019 and which already has had first results and is preparing to launch their MOOC.

STE(A)M IT project aims to strengthen the educational landscape by promoting innovative and cross-disciplinary approaches to STE(A)M teaching in education. The outcomes to promote innovative integrated STE(A)M practices at school level include:

So what do we have in common and what differentiates the three projects?

STEAMIT and STEAMonEdu both strive to define the competences of STE(A)M educators by investigating and engaging educators of formal and non-formal education. CHOICE differentiates by taking into account the needs of the students in STEM and STE(A)M Education and actively involves them along with educators in Creative Leadership Teams keeping them close to the labour market and STEM/STE(A)M career oriented approaches during the implementation of the project. Many common elements were also identified under our common goal, and partners discussed how the three projects complement each other. For example, all the three projects will create MOOCs, however, STEAMIT MOOC is aimed at  educators and starts in October of 2020, STEAMonEdu’s MOOC for educators is planned for 2021, and CHOICE MOOC will address students, so all interested  participants will be able to follow all of them.

We discussed the outcomes of our projects so far, our very first impressions regarding the future of policy reform in STE(A)M education, and our common findings regarding the continuously arising interest of all education professionals and policy makers across Europe.

We also had an extensive conversation on possible future synergies, potential collaboration, and how our projects complement each other something that unites us under the main common goal – to boost STEAM education!

We look forward to working together! Our highly regarded researchers’ team strongly believes that Team Work makes the Dream Work.

Jump with us,

                 let’s make this community larger,

                                       enroll to our platform,

                                                             join our vision!

You have a CHOICE to STEAMIT with STEAMonEdu!!!

Stay tuned – a lot of interesting things are being planned for the near future!

By RDWG and ALL DIGITAL

Researchers of our partner Regional Directorate of Education of Western Greece had an online meeting on 22 July to plan a National STE(A)M related contest, which will run in Greek public schools.

Following the new Skills Agenda presented by the European Commission on 1 July 2020, the researchers’ team had an extended discussion, and all agreed that focus should be given on certain skills and how those skills development could be connected to the contest in the school education environment, following the STE(A)M approach.

Once again the discussion underlined the fact that the dichotomy between humanities and sciences does not prepare new generations for the new cross-functional roles, for which employees need technical, as well as social and analytical skills. Thus, the main topics of the contest preparation meeting were:

• a strong STE(A)M focus that equips pupils and students with complex problem solving, creativity, critical thinking, people management, and cognitive flexibility; and
• the existence of STE(A)M educators capable of facilitating this learning process.

By RDEWG

The Panhellenic eTwinning Conference has now become an institution in the consciousness of the educational community and approximately 30,000 eTwinners teachers and educators. The 6th Panhellenic eTwinning Conference was scheduled to be held in Thessaloniki in March 2020, but due to the special circumstances of Covid-19 it took place online on 3-5 July 2020. Teacher enrollments exceeded 1,600.

STEAMonEdu was presented in one of the round tables of the conference entitled ‘Our experience from the Covid-19 era. The next day. Proposals ‘, coordinated by Nikos Tzimopoulos (member of EYY eTwinning) and with participants Panagiotis Anastasiadis (University of Crete), Charitonas Polatoglou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Spyros Papadakis (Regional Directorate of Education of Western Greece RDEWG), Anastasios Barbas (IKY).

Dr Spiros Papadakis, member of our STEAMonEdu researchers and Head Researcher of the RDEWG’s STEAMonEdu team shared with the participants the expected results of the project, the online platform and the multiple benefits of being a member of the STEAMonEdu European Community.

The Conference was honoured by the presence of the General Secretary of Primary Education, Secondary Education and Special Education Ms. Anastasia Gika of the Greek Ministry of Education who in her closing remarks stressed out the high quality and attractiveness of the 57 lectures and scientific presentations, the 13 workshops and the 2 round tables. Also Irene Pateraki, Pedagogical and Monitoring Manager of European SchoolNet, congratulated all presenters and participants for their enthusiasm and devotion in upscaling the educational procedure in Europe.

By RDEWG

The ErasmusDays Celebration was launched back in 2017 for the 30th anniversary of the programme. It has become in

three editions an unmissable European celebration for citizens and stakeholders of European projects.

In 2019, more than 53 countries participated in this astonishing international fest with more than 3,995 events! International players from school education, higher education, adult education, vocational training, youth and sport held different type of events around the world to to celebrate locally the tangible benefits of Europe.  The success of the #ErasmusDays has demonstrated the need to communicate European values, mobility’s benefits and Erasmus+ projects results at a large scale in order to be visible by citizens, professionals, media and policy makers.

ErasmusDays 2020 will be celebrated on the 15, 16 & 17 October 2020. Numerous exhibitions, concerts, contests, seminars, partner networking, open days, distribution of Europass Mobility documents, digital events are organized worldwide at the moment.

In Greece, this year a fascinating mixed digital and on-site event will be organized by Regional Directorate of Education of Western Greece on 15 October 2020  with multiple Greek Erasmus+ beneficiaries communicating their projects results, and of course….. STEAMonEdu will be there to stand out for the Competences of STE(A)M Educators in the Educational World!

By RDEWG

ALL DIGITAL delivered one more compelling Capacity Building Session on 19 November 2020. Capacity Building sessions are a series of five 90-min workshops addressing various aspects of advocacy and policy making, with the participation of all project partners and both internal and external speakers. You can read about the first two sessions in this blog.

This third session was once again moderated by Renato Sabbadini, CEO of ALL DIGITAL. He presented local and regional policy-making environments and underlined the importance of interaction of those environments with advocacy dynamics.

The advocacy practice at local level was analyzed by Dr. Panagiotis Papadouris, member of the Research Team of the Regional Directorate of Education of Western Greece, coordinator of Educational Work in Greece, and Professor at Hellenic Open University. The participants had the chance to know in depth the advocacy strategy and different tools Regional Directorate of Education of Western Greece has utilized in the past for its Policy Recommendations.

Finally, Borut Cink, programme officer at ALL DIGITAL with many years of advocacy experience at national level, provided the participants with all practical steps to address local and regional governance, including the descriptive demonstration of the most successful tools and methods.

The STEAMonEdu project partners are getting one step closer to advocacy! Stay tuned for the next steps to come in the European Policy influencing.

By RDEWG

A large webinar was organized in Greece by our STEAMonEdu partners, DAISSy Reasearch Group – CTI and the Regional Center of Educational Design of Western Greece with the support of Regional Directorate of Education of Western Greece on 4 December 2020 entitled “A Competence Framework for STE(A)M Educators”. More than 1,900 participants attended the webinar from all over Greece: 850 through Webex and 1050 through YouTube livestreaming. It was addressed to teachers and trainers of all levels who are already involved or are willing to get involved with STE(A)M education, researchers and postgraduate students, school principals, providers of vocational education and training, but also to anyone who is interested in the art of STE(A)M education.

The videos of the presentations of the day are available on YouTube.

The participants were greeted by the Deputy Minister of Education Mrs. Sofia Zacharaki and the Regional Director of Primary & Secondary Education of Western Greece Mr. Konstantinos Giannopoulos.

Amazing presentations focusing on STE(A)M education were conferred as follows:

1. «Introduction to the STE(A)M Education», by Dr. Spyridon Papadakis, Organizing Coordinator of Regional Center of Educational Design of Western Greece
2. «The STEAMonEdu Project», by Dr. Achilleas Kameas, Professor of Hellenic Open University
3. «The STEAMonEdu Community and the STEAMonEdu Platform» by Phd(c) Elena Sarli
4. «The planned training of Teachers STE(A)M Training( MOOC, Blended Learning)», by Athanasios Iosisfidis, Associate Professor of DI.PA.E.
5. «The Competence Framework for STE(A) M Educators and its evaluation», by Natalia Spyropoulou, researcher at DAISSy-CTI
6. «The CHOICE project: a project from students for students», by Dr. Athanasia Balomenou.

In addition, three Good STE(A)M Practices (which are already posted on the STEAMonEdu platform) were presented by teachers Petros Stavropoulos and Evangelia Kounavi.

Finally, the #STEAMonEduPhoto contest was presented to participants with the invitation to join.

Regional Directorate of Education of Western Greece

… Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view
And nothing else matters”

Nope, Metallica had no connection to the 3^rd STEAMonEdu transnational meeting, apart from the positive vibes and the eagerness of all participating partners to keep on working towards open minds and improvement of STE(A)M education!

It was just another productive STEAMonEdu partners meeting, which took place on 20-21 January 2021, hosted virtually by our Spanish partner Colectic. Barcelona was originally the meeting point, however the third project meeting had to be held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, like the previous one.

Colectic was an excellent virtual host, setting up an advanced system (and a new tool for partners to discover!) that facilitated the progress of the work which had to be done by all members with increased interaction. Colectic also provided all participants with a digital cultural taste of beautiful Barcelona and shared lively energising Catalan music during breaks in order to make the meeting as pleasant as possible.

As a result, a very productive and energetic meeting was delivered with the active involvement of all partners under the guidance of the project coordinator CTI.

During the first day of the meeting, the two major deliverables of the project, the STE(A)M education framework and the STE(A)M educator competence framework were thoroughly discussed and the next  steps of the process were agreed. Extra attention was paid to the current phase of creating the STE(A)M educator profile. This is a very important aspect of the project, thoroughly researched by all contributing partners in order to finally produce a quality product to look forward into STE(A)M Education in a European education policy context.

An interactive and productive part of the first day was the workshop on the development of the training content for a MOOC, which will be produced with the purpose of the professional development of STE(A)M Educators.

On the second day, the project partners gave great emphasis on the different evaluation processes and quality assurance of the project and also planned all upcoming dissemination and exploitation activities. One of these events will be another international STEAMonEdu workshop that will take place on 26 March, as part of the ALL DIGITAL Week campaign.

Finally, the date has been set for the next project meeting, which will hopefully take place in summer in Berlin.

By RDEWG

The Regional Center for Educational Planning of Western Greece (PE.K.ES. D.E.), Computer Technology Institute and Press “Diofantus” (C.T.I.) and Hellenic Open University (HOU) – DAISSy Research Group co-organize the Panhellenic and International Conference “STE(A)M educators and education”.

The conference aspires to be a step for academic dialogue for the members of the scientific and educational community in Greece and Europe, as well as other stakeholders, on contemporary scientific approaches and policies in the field of STE(A)M education. Presentations of experts and distinguished scientists from Greece and abroad will provoke a fruitful dialogue on the developments of the implementation of the STE(A)M educational approach in Greek and European Education. STE(A)M education proposes the introduction of Art in STEM education and of all disciplines in STEM education as well – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – and includes learning experiences that boost interdisciplinarity, creativity and innovation among learners, through an attractive way of teaching and training, with application to real life problems.

The Conference is coordinated by Dr. Achilles Kameas, Professor of HOU, and Dr. Spyridon Papadakis, Organizational Coordinator of PEKES Western Greece.

The conference is addressed to scientists, teachers and educators of all levels engaged or interested in applying STE(A)M education, researchers and postgraduate students, education executives, providers of vocational education and training but also to any individual interested in being informed about the latest scientific developments, experiences and the results of the implementation of the STE(A)M educational approach.

The conference will take place online from Friday 7 May until Sunday 9 May 2021.

Everybody who wishes to attend the Conference, needs to register by filling out the Registration form. There is no participation fee. Participants are going to receive a certificate of attendance.

For registration, click here

For more information about the programme and the structure of the conference, visit the website of the conference: https://steamonedu.eu/steam2021conference/

The conference is supported by the project “STEAMonEdu: Competence development of STE(A)M educators through online tools and communities”.

 The conference is also supported by

• the Regional Directorate of Education (PDE) of Western Greece
• the international teacher community Scientix
• the projects “STEAM-IT”, «CHOICE«, and «GEMIN«, which are funded by the European Programme Erasmus+ / KA3 / Forward Looking Cooperation Projects in the fields of Education and Training
• the Hellenic Education Society for S.T.E.M. (E3STEM)
• the eTwinning Hellenic National Support Service
• the Greek School Network
• 14 Greek Regional Centers for Educational Planning (PEKES): 1st & 2nd Central Macedonia, 1st & 2nd South Aegean, 1st Ionian Islands, 2nd North Aegean, 3rd, 4th & 5th Attica, Central Greece, Crete, Eastern Macedonian & Thrace, Peloponnese and Thessaly