Gifted students' special characteristics have not been assessed and elucidated yet. Recent modifications in our country's legislation (Law 3194/2003 FEK 267 Α ) and the special passage addition in the Law 2817/2003 anticipate special provision to individuals with special intellectual abilities and talents. This suggests the urgent need for sensitive and adequately trained teachers on matters concerning the identification and support of their pupils' special educational needs. The present study explores the characteristics of gifted children in elementary school, based on which, in service and pre service elementary teachers perceive and describe the gifted student. For the data collection, a questionnaire was developed based on the well-known, from the bibliography, SRBCSS-R assessment scale, which was translated into the greek language and was adapted to the greek standards. After a pilot study, the final research was conducted on 424 participants, all elementary school teachers, (93 pre service and 331 in service teachers respectively). The results indicated that there are differences in between pre service and in service teachers' perceptions as regards the gifted student. However, both groups of participants seem to draw a marginal distinction between the gifted student and the student they perceive as average-typical on the gifted behavioral dimensions of SRBCSS-R scale as a whole. Both pre service and in service teachers were found to focus more on learning and motivational characteristics. On the contrary, the characteristics of creativity and leadership were not highly valued by the participants on their perceptions of who the gifted student is.

Αναπαραστάσεις στελεχών Α/θμιας Εκπαίδευσης αναφορικά με την καταλληλότητα εκπαιδευτικών πρακτικών για χαρισματικούς μαθητέςΣΑΡΙΔΟΥ ΧΡΥΣΑΝΘΗ ΘΕΟΔΩΡΙΔΟΥ ΣΟΦΙΑ http://dx. AbstractThe school director as an educational leader is the one who can guarantee the http://epublishing.ekt.gr | e-Publisher: EKT | Downloaded at 09/07/2020 13:09:53 |

Modern internet technology enables phenomenal applications which reform the concept of distance learning. New pedagogical models, such as online communities of practice (OCoP), emerge with corresponding instructional/learning strategies and technological environments. Despite the easy deployment of software services for OCoP they often turn out to be hard to develop and survive. The paper concerns the case study of the Greek School Gardeners' Community. The learning design and the operation management of this OCoP are based on the combination of the pedagogical design framework of Dabbagh (2005) with the integrated Life Cycle Model (LCM) for online communities' facilitation of Irribery & Leroy (2009). The study of the combination of the theoretically founded learning design framework and the online communities Life Cycle Model as an operations management model constitutes the interest and the main contribution of this work. In the paper, the practical application of the proposed theoretical framework, for the specific case of the school gardeners' OCoP is presented, from the conception stage to the current crucial stage of its development. Finally the main findings so far and the future actions are discussed. The study interest researchers/teachers and OCoP developers and facilitators in general.