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The education and training of persons with disability
may be improved by the use of multimedia tools and of the Internet.
Many teachers are high motivated in considering the special needs of
students with disability, but have to overcome several difficulties.
The pedagogic aspects have to be investigated, so as to guarantee the
success of this new technologic approach.
Some schools and universities are looking for successful examples to follow. Some experience with students with disability has shown that active collaboration on a project and a common objective are particularly important for encouraging them to enhance communication with their friends. And this works also in the other sense round, that is that (at least once!) the other students have to ask for the collaboration of their schoolmates with disability in order to get more information on the activities of the project.
The difficulties encountered in a class with a student with disability may get some answer in far locations. Someone who has already worked on that problem may be now working on some other theme or in some other town. And a teacher or a parent who has to invest his time on a specific case, could be more motivated to do so, if he or she knows that the work could be of help for similar cases in other schools, at present or in the future.
Students with disability, who communicate among them in different schools or at home and retrieve information from the Internet, are an example for their schoolmates. Teachers communicating among them and with specialised centres of reference (blindness, deafness, multimedia, etc.) encourage their colleagues to access the Internet more frequently.
The impact of this way of working is very positive and the awareness-raising process is not based just on a passive pietism, but starts from the most interesting and modern approach, that of the use of the latest new technology applications.
In some European countries, it is usual to think that
persons with hearing impairment would had difficulties trying to learn
to lip-read and speak and should therefore make use of sign language
and attend special schools. In others there is another approach to the
problem.
In Italy the law encourages the integration of deaf children in the
normal schools, with a remedial teacher, without the use of sign language.
Some Associations, like ALFA in Milan, are getting very good results
from helping the children following this approach, and do so with children
joining primary school right through to those finishing the University
and finding job afterwards.
Despite the fact that good results are achievable, these require an
enormous effort, which could be greatly reduced through the use of new
technologies and a deeper collaboration of teachers and schoolmates.
Previous experiences of the Partners of the proposed Project confirm how important is to reconsider the pedagogic approach of a lesson, in view of the participation of students with disability and of the use of new tools. In many cases, taking care of special needs makes it possible to improve the quality of the lesson for any student.