Online educational community

The Greek Schools Network (GSN) project responds to the requirement of primary and secondary schools for new innovative educational methods, access to digital libraries, and for collaboration between distributed groups of users. The objective of the project is to create a national infrastructure for innovative education methods and practices by connecting all primary and secondary schools, and the administrative offices of the Ministry of Education, in an educational Intranet. The total number of connected units (educational and administrative) will be over 8 000. The project functions at four different levels. Firstly, it provides in situ infrastructure. Schools participating in the project obtain computers and local network hardware tailored to their specific educational needs. This is known as the “School Laboratory”. Secondly, it provides network connectivity to these laboratories through a complex communication infrastructure, which includes a backbone network, a decentralised distribution network that interconnects points of presence (nodes) with the backbone network, and an access network that interconnects users to the nearest point of presence. Thirdly, GSN provides telematics services for education, collaboration and communication to its users. And fourthly, GSN users also benefit from educational content, provided through a portal specifically designed for the needs of the project. This includes articles and information material, teaching material, software tools for the preparation of classes and the monitoring of students, useful links, news, etc.. At a more advanced level, the project will also facilitate asynchronous open distance learning, teleconferencing, and video on demand (VoD). “Out-of-GSN” schools (e.g. private schools) can also interconnect with the network via dialup lines. In this case the school is responsible for the telecommunication charges. Although GSN is a Ministry of Education initiative, it is being implemented in collaboration with 10 Greek Universities and 2 Research Centres (12 local nodes in total), which provide network administration and develop the necessary applications software and e-learning tools. The project uses the backbone network of the Greek Research and Technology Network, which also provides Internet access to Greek universities and research centres.