Distance learning training for secondary education teachers: using visual thinking as a method to teach digital skills to students with ASD. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Distance learning training for secondary education teachers: using visual thinking as a method to teach digital skills to students with ASD.

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs; Access for disadvantaged; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in schools closing all across the globe, leaving over 1.2 billion children in 186 countries out of the classroom. As a result, education has seen a dramatic change, with the rise of e-learning, and teaching taking place remotely and on digital platforms. Meaning that teachers have dramatically changed their learning and working materials to digitised options. Many teachers who have never had such experience before, and who have not received sufficient training on how to deal with such a crisis in pre-service and in-service training processes, were caught unprepared for this process. Additionally, recent research suggests that online learning has been shown to increase retention of information, (Zeglen & Rosendale, 2018) and take less time, meaning the changes caused by the pandemic might be here to stay. However, with this sudden shift away from the classroom in many parts of the globe, it became clear that there is a lack of proper teacher training in online learning as only 20% of the countries in Europe provide training on distance education to teachers. In fact, the partnership during the preparation of this proposal conducted a needs analysis of teachers and one of the biggest concerns appeared to be the sudden shift to online training and their lack of training and experience in that matter.

This also aligns with the increasing need for the acquisition of digital skills for high-school students, as they are an important part of life not only for their university life but also for employment later on. More and more workplaces worldwide, require digital skills. In most developed countries, digital skills have become almost necessary for employment. Around 90% of jobs in the EU require at least some level of digital skills, rising to 98% for managerial positions (European Commission, 2017). However, despite the growing evidence of the need to include digital skills in education as a core competency, very few countries include digital skills in school curricula (European Commission, 2017).
Moreover, despite the importance of digital skills nowadays, 80 million Europeans are digitally excluded. Digital exclusion, according to European Commission, is part of the overall challenge of exclusion, a widespread and growing phenomenon that takes its toll in life paths like poor lifelong earnings and an increased risk of marginalization. There are many people currently excluded for reasons of low income and education, location, culture, or various disabilities, such as autism. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a disorder that affects every individual to a different degree. It is a lifelong complex developmental disorder, characterized by impairments in social communication, social interaction, and social imagination (Wing & Gould, 1979). Representing an estimated 7 million people, ASD is labelled as the fastest-growing disorder with an annual growth rate of 10-17%, according to the Autism Society.

Therefore, in an attempt to minimise the digital exclusion of students with autism while at the same time, contribute to the professional development of secondary-school teachers, so that they are well-equipped to cope with the sudden shift in education due to the COVID breakout, we propose a project with the following objectives:

•Develop an e-course with educational materials, a serious game, and visual thinking video tutorials (specially designed for students with ASD) to train them on the basic digital skills they are going to need when they graduate from school
•To deliver a training course to directly train secondary-school teachers on online learning, a skill necessary for their professional development
Results

IO1 ASDigital e-course and piloting (O1), ASDigital Teacher’s Guide (IO2), Serious educational game for digital skills (O3), visual thinking video tutorials for e-course (O4), ASDigital E-learning platform (O5), all interconnected.
2. 21 VET trainers, trained on how to train secondary school teachers through the use of the Educational package and the e-Learning platform (C1)
3. 35 teachers trained in distance learning (C2)
4. a number of ASD students taught basic skills in the piloting of the e-course developed
4. 7 multiplier events to promote the project, its intellectual outputs, and its outcomes among teachers, educators, individuals with ASD- and other stakeholders (SEN/ASD associations, SENCOs, education organisations, Universities, incubators, authorities, other stakeholders) (E1-E7)

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 239988 Eur

Project Coordinator

COFAC COOPERATIVA DE FORMACAO E ANIMACAO CULTURAL CRL & Country: PT

Project Partners

• OZDEBIR Ozel Egitim Uygulama Okulu1. Kademe
• Szkoła Podstawowa nr 11 z Oddziałami Integracyjnymi im. Kornela Makuszyńskiego
• Associació Educativa i Cultural Blue Beehive
• SCS LogoPsyCom
• STANDO LTD
• E-CODE