Meet the ODS Contest Winners 2015!
Meet the ODS Teachers of the Year 2015!!!
ODS Contest Winners
Ms Maria Eleftheriou, PanEuropean Winner for the ODS Contest 2014-2015
Maria’s learning scenario received the majority of the votes from the National Winners.
Ms. Maria Eleftheriou is a secondary education teacher in the field of Science: Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Before that she worked as a scientific collaborator at the Department of Music Technology and Acoustics of the Technological Educational Institute of Crete in Rethymnon. She also worked as a lecturer at the Department of Materials Science and Technology and the Department of Physics of the University of Crete. She holds a Master´s Degree in Condensed Matter Physics (1999) and a Bachelor´s Degree in Physics (1997) from the University of Crete. In 2003, she finished her PhD thesis on “Statistical properties of classical nonlinear lattices”.
What was your motivation to participate in ODS Contest? Maria Eleftheriou: Teachers perform various scenarios during the school year. Some scenarios prove to be very helpful for students. Important principles of science can be illustrated in class using specific tools, thus scenarios can give inspiration to the students. Therefore ODS contest is a great opportunity for teachers to disseminate their educational scenario to the community of teachers throughout the world.
Is the learning scenario easily developed by the ODS tools? What are the necessary skills that a teacher has to have? Maria Eleftheriou: The ODS tools and especially the authoring tool is a very easy and powerful tool in order to make educational scenarios. A scenario is divided in stages and can be easily studied by other teachers and students. Teachers using ODS tools do not need to have specific skills but have to have specific ideas, goals and vision in order to perform a successful scenario.
Maria holding her prize for winning the ODS pan-European contest
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Mr Hélder Pereira, PanEuropean Winner for the ODS Contest 2014-2015
Hélder’ s learning scenario received the majority of the votes from the Facebook community.
Mr. Hélder Pereira is a Biology and Geology Teacher at the Escola Secundária de Loulé in Portugal. Since 2005, he is overseeing the running of his School’s Earth and Space Sciences Club. He has participated alongside his students in several national and International Science Fairs (e.g. Mostra Nacional de Ciência, Ciencia en Acción and Congresso Cientistas em Acção). Several projects presented during those events have been awarded. In 2008, he participated in the program «Teachers At Sea» aboard the R/V Marion Dufresne during the cruise MD-168 AMOCINT. Since then, he has been participating in similar projects aboard different ships (e.g. «School of Rock 2009» aboard the D/V JOIDES Resolution during IODP Expedition 321-T and «Professores a bordo» aboard the N.R.P. Alm. Gago Coutinho during the EMEPC-PEPC-ROV LUSO 2013). He also served as Education Officer aboard the D/V JOIDES Resolution during Expedition IODP 339. In addition to teaching he is currently involved in several projects aiming the popularisation and divulgation of science.
What was your motivation to participate in ODS Contest? Hélder Pereira: My main motivation to participate in ODS Contest was the possibility to share the work I do with my students with my fellow teachers, not only in Portugal but also throughout Europe. And of course the chance to participate in the ODS Summer School 2015 and meet teachers from other countries and how they use ICT tools in the classroom was also on my mind.
Is the learning scenario easily developed by the ODS tools? What are the necessary skills that a teacher has to have? Mr Hélder Pereira: The learning scenario I shared is based on the exploration of authentic science data with free and open software that can easily be installed and used by other teachers and their students.
Do you find the structure and the services of the ODS portal sufficiently developed for you and in which aspects? Mr Hélder Pereira: I am a recent user of the ODS portal and at the first attempts to use it as a repository of my learning scenario I had some issues to upload it. However, once I understood how to overcome these difficulties I had fun uploading the scenario. I think that some improvements are needed regarding the possibility to share multimedia contents. The limitation of the file size of the material (e.g. images) we try to upload sometimes is a little bit frustrating. Anyway, the overall assessment of the ODS is positive and I congratulate the team for all the hard work they have been doing.
Does ODS portal supports your work in the classroom and in which ways? Mr Hélder Pereira: Since I started using the ODS Portal educational repository I have found many useful materials developed by my fellow teachers throughout Europe. Using the ICT tools, the educational resources and the best practices available in the ODS Portal in my classroom is helping me to use innovative approaches to increase the motivation of my students to learn.
What would be your suggestions for the ODS portal? How it should change? Mr Hélder Pereira: Continue the good work and keep spreading the word. Many of my Portuguese fellow teachers didn’t know the ODS Portal until recently.
Hélder with his pupils celebrating the ODS pan-European contest prize