DIVERSASIA - Best practices

The specialized training course ICTs in Education for People with Special Needs is intended to provide specialists involved in education of people with SEN with a view of the principles, ways, and methods of SNE design, taking into account the ICT diversity in all areas of education. The course is designed for the target groups to construct deep knowledge and high competencies regarding: • importance of providing inclusive education to achieve equal opportunities for all; • relevant aspects of education for students with SEN in Information Society; • role of ICTs in providing inclusive education for students with SEN; • critical and reflective selection and use of special technologies according to exclusive needs of students; • appropriate educational conditions for successful application of ICTs in SNE; • evaluation methods related to the educational use of ICTs in SNE; • design and implementation of ICT policy in SNE. The main objective of the course is focused on the development of motivation to use ICTs in SNE. In this context, ‘knowledge’ implies theoretical and practical knowledge of the content to be learnt. ‘Competencies’ mean the ability to transfer and adapt the skills of the course into a real classroom situation. Having mastered this specialized training course, the trainees are expected to be able to use and apply the acquired knowledge and competencies in their daily educational practice. 

Description of Trainees’ Competences formed within Specialized Training Course 

The trainees of the course ICTs in Education for People with Special Needs are expected to be able to enhance their understanding and develop knowledge and skills in the following domains: • Identification of learning barriers faced by students with a certain type of disability and assessment of the crucial role of ICTs in overcoming them and facilitating the inclusion education. • Critical and reflective selection of ICTs for education according to: – the special needs of students with disabilities (considering their functional limitations and ICT potential in their compensation), – the educational goals (considering knowledge and competencies that students need to develop and ICT role to achieve these goals). • Classification of different types of technologies used in distance education for students with SEN (considering the accessibility barriers to technologies in distance education faced by students with disabilities and main approaches to overcome them). • Planning and implementing the ICT policy in SNE (considering the development of legal base and providing continuous monitoring of ICT usage in SNE). 

Target Audience 

This specialized training course will be of interest to the key stakeholders involved in education of people with SEN, in particular: • SNE policy developers and decision makers; • administrators and specialists of teachers’ training and retraining institutions; • administrators and specialists of SNE institutions; • SNE programme planners and curriculum developers.