Plenary Lecture

Science teachers’ collaborating learning for scientific literacy:
from practice to the practice

Dr. Michail Kalogiannakis
Researcher University Paris 5 - René Descartes
Laboratory: Education et Apprentissages
Web site: http://labo.eda.free.fr/article.php3?id_article=11
E-mail: mkalogian@hotmail.com

Abstract: In the information society, the ability to collect, develop, exchange, store and manage information from various and dispersed data along with the ability to generate additional information is essential. Distance learning is not a new phenomenon. The term distance learning is extensively used by colleges and universities to describe remote delivery of course contents. In the last three decades a rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT) has opened new horizons for distance learning providing new magnificent opportunities for mankind in the area of education.

The traditional organisation of education creates often practical difficulties in using new technologies in class. The limited impact of ICT has as much to do with science teachers’ attitudes and skills as with access to equipment. Science teachers should prepare their students for a multiplicity of roles that will be called to play in the future. We argue that there is a great need to restructure science teachers’ education if we wish school science to serve the purpose of scientific literacy. The mailing lists can be used as collaborative work tools for interaction and dialogue creating educational communities. Generally speaking, online communities can offer a lot of opportunities to teachers which are comparable with face to face meetings. Those who communicate on-line maintain a variety of links, exchanging information, emotional aid creating complex relationships. Subscription to and participation in mailing lists could be a part of science teacher’s on-going professional development. This particular individual commitment follows the logics of action of a social experience: integration, strategy and subjectivation. Science teachers belonging to mailing lists have specific interests in professional training, ICT and knowledge.

Science and technology are two of the most important areas of the modern human culture. If science and technology education is meant to have any functional role to play in the future lives of the students, then a holistic reorientation of both its content and the association with that pedagogical approach is required. Although we can not predict how virtual learning environments will influence learning effectiveness, an important point to consider is that, for sciences teachers, a virtual space is an open space, a space where they can try new approaches. Teaching has always been an individual work: teachers do not collaborate a lot; they rarely attend to each others lectures, and they rarely exchange teaching material. The challenge here is to turn teaching into a collective performance using the paradigm of the mailing lists.


Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Michail Kalogiannakis received his Bachelor in Physics in 1993 at the University of Crete and he acquired two postgraduate Masters in didactic of sciences and technology at the University Paris 7-Denis Diderot in 1994 and in sciences education at the University Paris 5-René Descartes in 2000. Later, he received his Ph.D in sciences education at the University Paris 5 in 2004. Michail Kalogiannakis is currently a researcher at the University Paris 5 (Laboratory: Education et Apprentissages) and he is working at the Hellenic Open University, at ASPETE (School of Pedagogical and Technological Education) and at TEI (Technological Educational Institute) of Crete. He is the author of a book in French concerning science teachers’ education, distant education and pedagogy and co-editor of a book (in Greek) about distance-learning approaches in institutions of tertiary education. He has participated in several international conferences and has published a considerable number of research papers in journals, books and conference proceedings in English, French, Greek and Russian. His research interests concern science teaching and learning, ICT and science teacher’s education and pedagogy.