EUDOXOS – TSRT

1. EUDOXOS – TSRT Teaching Sciencewith a Robotic Telescope Project 2002-4085/001-001 EDU-ELEARN George Fanourakis Demokritos Greek National Center for Scientific Research Institute of Nuclear Physics e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

2. Tele-Education / Tele-Research e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

3. Scope Use the magic of Astronomy and the capabilities of the Internet in order to improve and enrich the quality of the learning and teaching process in science and technology by transforming the classroom into a research laboratory. • Partners • NSCR ‘Demokritos’ -- Greece • Ellinogermaniki Agogi -- Greece • University of Athens -- Greece • Univ of Cadiz -- Spain • MCI -- Austria • + 4 high schools (Bolonia-Spain, Schwechat-Austria, • Pininfarina-Italy, EA-Greece) e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

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5. Kefallinia island Eudoxos Observatory mountain Ainos e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

6. National Eudoxos Observatory e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

7. The Andreas Michalitsianos telescope and dome e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

8. TAM close-up e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

9. Apollon telescope and dome e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

10. Education with Eudoxos • A Research grade Physical Sciences Lab accessible to every European school with internet access. • Bringing advanced technology to classroom. • Interdisciplinary approach to teaching science. • Real experiments – Real measurements. • No poor / rural district school excluded. • Bringing to schools a new and innovative educational environment. • Experience authentic research environment. • Develop research mentality. • Enhancing creativity: free experimentation of teachers / students. e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

11. Encouraging the communication and the exchange of • scientific / technological information among European • schools. • The students are taught to: • Make astronomical observations • Collect and analyze the data. • Discuss the results with students, teachers and researchers. • Present their results. • Students are motivated and learn the involved scientific ideas in the process. e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

12. Realisation • Developed Educational Platform – User Interface • Developed Pedagogical Framework - Lesson Plans • Developed Evaluation Strategy • Trained teachers • Repeatedly implement/evaluate/refine • Conduct final evaluation of the technology and the • learning capacity and efficiency of the methodology e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

13. Implementation Progress March-June 2003 October 2002 Test Run Design / Implement Pedagogical Content – User Interface Develop Educational Platform, Evaluation Scheme September 2003 Redesign of prototypes Final Run / Final Improvements e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

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24. Study of Lunar craters e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

25. Asteroid Rotation e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

26. Teachers’ comments Strengths: Use of a robotic telescope, use of PC software, scientific research – approach, collaborative – group learning, e-learning approach, flexibility of the Eudoxos User Interface. The introduction of PC and the user interface widened the participation of the students who were more than usual attracted by the work. The learning structure worked in small groups of the target persons. This structure provides a high level of interest and activity but needs much help of the teaching person. The flexibility of the user interface is a focus point for the project. The activity can be adjusted such as at higher difficulty level it provides a challenge to the good students and at low difficulty level it provides a motivated environment for the usually-not-motivated students. The typical 20-30 % of motivated to learn students increased to 80% ! e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

27. Weaknesses: Limited availability of the telescope because of weather issues, long time duration of each activity. The impossibility to achieve immediate results to our submission had been a didactical limit. However students could be taught that researchers need patience and they learn to wait for the results. National curricula cannot be adapted as intended by the project different structures of participating schools and different intentions/needs, make it difficult to find a common starting point. Interface would still need further improvements. Challenges: Students are benefited from such learning activities. Therefore, we believe that this project should cover more topics in the future. However, we suggest that the lesson activities should be designed in a way that certain tasks will be feasible in shorter periods of time. Dissemination will remain an important issue in order to making aware of innovative potentials given for Science education in European schools. e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

28. Evaluation process • Evaluation of students learning • Evaluation of the pedagogical framework • Ethnographic evaluation e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

29. Evaluation process The evaluation is based on the participation in the evaluation process of the active participants: the students and teachers. The evaluation strategies and tools proposed are the ones required by global, qualitative evaluation. The main tools proposed are: the teachers’ diaries and the Students’ portfolios. The teacher’s diary: is a tool for the collection and analysis of information that allows the teacher to analyse thoroughly and systematically what happens in the classroom. The Students’ Portfolio constitutes a fundamental tool with which each student monitors the learning process systematically and thoroughly and becomes aware of the usefulness of the content they are working on. One more tool for the collection and analysis of data: the Inter-School Collaboration Journal. e-Learning Coordinators Meeting

30. Future Prospects of Eudoxos • Create worldwide network of remotely controlled telescopes for education. • Establish Satellite connection with Institutes housing the interface. • Apply to higher education (Universities). e-Learning Coordinators Meeting