Since its founding in 1917, Doukas School (DOUKAS) has always tried to keep up with the latest trends in education. On 2,5 acres of campus, the school's educational and athletic facilities are amongst the best in design and construction. Doukas School is a K-12 educational institution and offers to its 1600 students some of the finest educational and athletic programmes in Greece. Over the last couple of years, the school has organised a number of conferences on Mathematics, Pre-school Education, Educational Computing & New Technologies, STE(A)M, Artificial Intelligences, or Self-Regulated Learning, such as the International Conference on “The School of the Future and the Future of the School” under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Education.
In 2011, Doukas School was identified as a Pathfinder School by Microsoft for its innovative educational practices and its potential to create scalable and replicable educational transformation that can influence schools within Greece and around the world. Furthermore, Doukas School became a Microsoft Case Study for the implementation of 1:1 computing in the classroom. DOUKAS participated in several EU and National R&D projects (www.en.doukas.gr/randd) and has coordinated extensive European Networks (www.schoolonthecloud.net) under programmes such us Erasmus+, Lifelong Learning Programme, HORIZON 2020 and PAVET. The 1st “Classroom of the Future” in Greece was created in 2007, where all students from Grade 4 use a portable “eschoolbag” (Tablet, containing all educational material and are connected wirelessly to the “e-blackboard” of their classroom and the Internet). Currently, more than 1500 students at Doukas School, between grades 4 to 9 (ages: 9-14), use their tablets to have constant and immediate access to their educational content and the entire digital world. Doukas School, is the first educational establishment in Greece that has been awarded in 2012 the award “Recognised for Excellence” 4 stars of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM).
Doukas School's educational environment is focused, among others, on students' values. Currently, Doukas is running a social and emotional development project – named “StasiZois- Life Skills”, that focuses on the special needs of the child in each age group. It complements academic knowledge and skills by introducing activities in Kindergarten, Primary School and upper and lower Secondary School which refer to values like friendship, respect, diversity, volunteering etc. and feelings experienced by children in school. In the context of the project Life Skills, students, their parents and their teachers form a volunteering network. Some examples of the actions of the network are cleaning of beaches (e.g. Shinias beach), gathering food, participating in eco-mobility activities, oil recycling and soap manufacturing which is sold afterwards at the Christmas Bazaar for philanthropic purposes and manufacturing of eco-friendly cleaning products in Doukas STEM labs. Stimulating and promoting environmental thinking is one of the aspects that the school considers vitally important for the children's future.
Over the last few years, Doukas School was nominated as an Eco-School with the Green Flag by the Greek Ministry of Education and the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Nature.
The objective of this programme is to change the behaviour of everyone within the school community so that the school will become a real "Eco School". This is achieved through the formulation and implementation of an "Ecocode" (a set of environmental behaviour standards), and the implementation of an Environmental Action Plan (which involves all the surrounding area of the school and its conversion into a clean, attractive, and friendly space). Students and teachers established an Environmental Committee, which addresses issues of energy, waste, and water. At the same time, the Committee oversees the implementation of the "Action Plan" and the "Ecocode" with the participation of the entire school community. Finally, in order to achieve links with the local community and ensure the raising of public awareness, the school organises activities and events in cooperation with the
local government and authorities.

​

Yannis Kotsanis holds a PhD in Computer Engineering and Educational Technology from the National Technical University of Athens. Currently he is Head of Research – Innovation & Quality Departments at Doukas School. His main research interests pertain to innovative and competency-based education, with an emphasis in language communication, logic and digital literacies, gamification, educational applications, and adult training. He joined the iRead community combining his initial academic research in Computational Linguistics with his experience as a researcher and project manager in more than 50 R&D national and European projects. Further info and related papers can be found in www.kotsanis.gr.

​

​

Thomas Economou is currently conducting his studies in the field of Digital Systems with a focus on Technology Education and e-services (collaborative learning environments, knowledge management, educational psychology, etc.) at the University of Piraeus. He has been a member of the Doukas School R&D Department since 2014 and has been involved with the Project Management and Financial Management of more than 20 educational and training related programmes under Erasmus+, LLP, Horizon 2020 as well as several national projects. During this period, he has also been a member of Doukas School team in several literacy related projects such as Boys Reading, IDPBC, LiRe 2.0 and COMMIX. He has also been actively involved as a researcher in several EU funded programmes.