Micro eLearning Open Seminars on “School Based Distance Education” to Support K12 Teachers during the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020

The emergence of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Greece resulted in the suspension of all schools both in spring (March-May) and in winter (November-December) in 2020. Teachers of all levels of education (165,000), were called upon to respond to the Emergency Remote Teaching needs of students in a short period of time. During the period March-December 2020, the Laboratory of Advanced Learning Technologies in Lifelong and Distance Learning (e-Learning Lab) of the University of Crete using its own resources tried to contribute to the support of teachers in their effort to meet the challenges of distance education as a result of the suspension of schools. In the above context, fast-track distance seminars were designed and implemented in order to support teachers in dealing with issues related to the pedagogical dimension of Distance Education. During the period March-December 2020, 23 distance training seminars were held (Micro eLearning Open Seminars) in which more than 50,000 teachers of Primary and Secondary Education from all over Greece participated. A first comprehensive presentation of the training activities is attempted in this paper.