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Summary

• Theme categories
• Project target groups
• Type of activities

The aim of the Project is to improve the access to education by the use of new multimedia applications, for helping persons with disability in their education and training, as well as in accessing the Information Society.

The Project proposes not only the promotion of new technologies for helping students with disability, but also to stimulate and increase the use of new, widely diffused technologies, namely the Internet. The objective of the Project is that of uniting, by means of an Internet Forum, schools, public administrations, services providers and other organisations.

The proposed European Umbrella Project will help in transferring the information among the different schools and in discussing cross-national educational pedagogic aspects.
For this aim, an ACCESS TO EDUCATION Special Interest Users Group will be created and an Internet News-group and a Chat-line will be available for Net-meetings of teachers and students.
A support will be offered by multimedia tele-education systems, based on a ACCESS TO EDUCATION Help Desk and on some workshop, which will help in the initiation and training of teachers to the aspects of disability and more generally of the use of the Internet.

The Project will encourage the collaboration of students (particularly cybergirls) in contacting via Internet students with disability (more specifically with hearing impairment), with the aim of training their parents (particularly mothers) in accessing the Web.

Presentations at schools, a videoconference linked to a television transmission and a world wide Web search will draw the attention of the public on these themes.
The final goal is broader than the technical aspects related to the multimedia tools or to the Internet. The aim is that of a large awareness campaign, which will increase the awareness of teachers, students, families and people at home, on the problems encounter by students with special needs in the school and in the society, in everyday aspects related to education.
The use of the Internet as a communication tool and its pedagogic value will be underlined, preparing the younger generations to the challenges of the third millennium.

Theme Categories

• Citizenship Solidarity with isolated and disadvantaged groups:
  Integration of students with disability in schools; awareness rising of school mates and of teachers on problems related to disability; communication on the Internet between hearing and hearing impaired persons; collaboration of cybergirls in training parents in accessing the Web
• Sciences:
  Voice-to-text recognition and sounds to images conversion: theoretical and practical aspects.
• Arts:
  Encouraging the use of the Web in the Arts Schools and underlining the particular skills of students with hearing impairment, in fields related to images and not to sounds.
• Employment/Unemployment:
  Helping persons with disability to find more appropriate jobs corresponding to their abilities

Project Target Groups

• Teachers in schools:
  Developing awareness of the teachers on the problems encountered by students with disability; suggesting them ways of providing help.
• Teachers in higher education:
  Collaborating with some Universities for general approach and pedagogic advice, tests of new tools, activities in integrating students with disability in the normal curricula.
• Trainers:
  Groups of the provincial super-intendents of public education: Developing awareness of the trainers on the problems encountered by students with disability and discussing ways of providing the school teachers with guidelines and successful examples to follow.
• Students / Pupils:
  Developing awareness of students and pupils on the problems encountered by their schoolmates with disability; suggesting them ways of providing help.
• Parents:
  Helping parents of children with disability to get information from the Web on technical aids and good examples of new pedagogic approaches.
• Other:
  Associations of persons with disability: Helping Associations of persons with disability to access the Internet, find useful information, use e-mail and News-groups, create and manage Web pages.

Type of Activities

• Production of web pages:
  Presenting information on disability and on technical aids, with choices in several languages and text description of images; the approach will follow the Trace Centre's rules for the accessibility to the Internet for persons with visual impairment or reduced mobility.
• Development of new educational concepts using online media:
  Encouraging the discussion of the technical and pedagogic aspects of multimedia systems and disability, via the ACCESS TO EDUCATION Forum; underlining how taking care of special needs it is possible to improve the quality of the lessons for any student.
• Exchange of training and learning material on the Internet:
  Disseminating information on multimedia applications for helping students with disability, via the ACCESS TO EDUCATION Forum; spreading information on the ACCESS TO EDUCATION Help Desk, aimed at providing on line help on the use of multimedia systems and of voice-to-text recognition in school lessons, as well as on the use of the Internet.
• Creation of new electronic networks:
  Facilitating the starting of new contacts via the ACCESS TO EDUCATION Special Interest User Group; stimulating the use of the Chat Line for exchanging informal messages on aspects related to the Project and in other fields at school and from home; this is particularly interesting for enhancing contacts among students.

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