| Description of good practice: |
Inclusive education presents an opportunity for students with special needs to attend mainstream classrooms with their age-group peers. To realize this we need to provide for the relevant conditions of overcoming the barriers to the learning process. Particularly speaking, these conditions are attained via the facilitation of ICT infrastructure for SNE,
integration of ICTs into SNE curriculum and training of ICT specialists in SNE.
Promoting ICT infrastructure for SNE is necessary in order to provide for the appropriate conditions of teaching and learning in the SNE context. The conditions in every type of inclusive educational area cannot be successfully created without the appropriate ICT tools applied. Assistive tools must be used to allow students with SEN to participate in the educational process based on special techniques and equipment.
For some students, a technological solution will be the only way to ensure that they can make their needs, opinions, and views known. For them, access to ICT-based solutions is a lifeline to inclusion. ICT support in inclusive education is important because it covers issues that apply to a spectrum of potential learning needs. The key ways in which ICTs can support educational opportunities for people with SEN are as follows:
• Identifying the preliminary level of personal development (experiences and skills), that is to say the starting point of a student;
• Assisting in personal development by shaping new skills or updating existing ones;
• Improving the access to information;
• Overcoming geographical or social isolation via communication support and networks;
• Improving the image/perception of an area by enhancing motivation and awareness regarding the ICT benefits in SNE.
It is also important to recognize that with ICTs alone we cannot solve all problems. The second step requires the willingness of educators to develop innovative teaching methods or to change and adopt the existing approaches to accommodate new concepts of special needs education and modern technologies. If a learner is unable to manage a particular activity (due to physical or sensory barriers), alternative activities must be designed or adapted, so that he/she gets a chance to receive the needed information and demonstrate the results. To implement this intention ICTs must be fully integrated in SNE curricula. Curriculum modification is not about its simplification for some students or lowering of academic requirements or standards. The modified curriculum must preserve the skills or knowledge required for a particular course and distribute knowledge and training resources in a more creative way and on a more equal basis.
In the new millennium, online delivery has become the most prevalent way of presenting the up-to-date information to students in the quickest, most flexible, and innovative ways possible. Educational courses can utilize a variety of technologies to facilitate learning and interaction between participants: asynchronous and synchronous communication and collaboration tools (e-mail, bulletin boards, whiteboards, chat rooms, videoconferencing, and
teleconferencing), interactive elements (simulations, immersive environments, and games), various testing and evaluation methods (self-assessment, multiple choice testing, etc.). Educational content can be presented in various media: text on a website, multimedia, such as digital audio, digital video, animated images, and virtual reality environments. This content can be created in a multiplicity of ways, utilizing a variety of authoring tools. As a result, ICTs transform educational dynamics by providing alternative, authoritative sources of information, which requires teachers to become facilitators and, in some cases, intermediaries between specific information sources and a learner. At the same time, ICTs can break teacher’s isolation, providing them with prospects to communicate beyond the
traditional school-management hierarchy. |
