University of Crete, Department of Preschool Education
Assistant Professor of Educational Technology.
Member of the STEPS project scientific team.
University of Crete
Stamatios Papadakis
- 1 What is your research about?
-
I study how young children learn when using digital tools: tablet apps, simple programming environments like ScratchJr, educational robots, and—in recent years—artificial intelligence tools. I work in kindergartens and primary schools to observe what actually changes in the learning process and what does not. A significant part of my work involves evaluating apps marketed as “educational” for children; quite a few of them are not.
- 2 Why is it important?
-
Children encounter screens long before they start school, and parents and educators are called upon to choose tools without clear criteria. Research provides such criteria: distinguishing between tools that foster thinking, play, and collaboration and those that merely keep the child occupied. It also helps ensure that access to quality digital education does not depend on where a family lives or what they can afford to buy.
- 3 What inspired you to pursue this path?
-
I started out in 1999 as a secondary school Computer Science teacher and later served as a school principal. I constantly observed the gap between what a new technology promises and what actually happens in the classroom. Wanting to understand the reasons behind this, I returned to university and completed a PhD on the use of ICT in teaching mathematics at the preschool level.
- 4 What do you like most about research?
-
The fact that the children and teachers prove you wrong. You go into a classroom with a hypothesis, the children use the materials in ways you hadn’t imagined, and you have to rethink everything from scratch. I also like that the results don’t just sit in a drawer: they end up in curricula, teacher training programs, and freely available resources.
- 5 What advice would you give to a child who loves science?
-
Ask questions and then seek the answer yourself; one experiment is worth more than ten opinions. Do not fear making mistakes: in research, error is part of the work, not a failure. And when it comes to technology, try to build things, not just use them.
- 6 Fun fact: Tell us something about yourself that not many people know.
-
I run marathons. My personal best is 2 hours and 37 minutes (Valencia Marathon, 2019). Training and research are more alike than they seem: in both, progress comes from patience and daily repetition.
