(horizontal operation MIS 5001313)

Start Date: 01/09/2016

End Date: 31/08/2019

The subject of the Operation is the development of accessible digital educational material for Primary Education (3^rd - 6^th Grade) for all pupils with disability and/or special educational needs. Furthermore, this material can be used by students of Special Schools and Special Vocational Education and Training Schools (EEEEK) in the secondary education, too.

It is a follow-up of the operation “Design and development of accessible digital educational and training material for pupils with disabilities (horizontal operation with MIS 299743 (http://www.prosvasimo.gr/el/ ), which funded the adaptation of all the school subjects’ textbooks for the 1^st and 2^nd Grades, so that they are accessible to all students with various disabilities.

The special needs covered by the implementation of the Operation are:

• Visual Impairments (Blind, Partially Sighted pupils)
• Hearing Impairments (Deaf, Hard of Hearing pupils)
• Reduced mobility
• Moderate and mild mental disability
• Autistic Spectrum Disorders
• Specific Learning Difficulties
• Attention deficit disorders and concentration problems

Aims:

• Investing in education and training for the acquisition of skills and life-long learning
• Reducing and preventing early school leaving and promoting equality of access to high-quality primary and secondary education as well as formal, non formal and informal education opportunities for reintegration in education and training
• Increasing the number of school units which operate within the framework of New School, enhancing the structures and quality of Primary and Secondary Education.

Implementation Process:

• The educational material will be developed in print and digital form depending on the type of the disability and the special educational need to which it is addressed.
• Appropriate digital technology, which will render it fully accessible, will also be used.
• Special educational material addressed to teachers, students, parents and to the educational practice in general, will be developed.

The following main actions are included:

• Scientific and educational substantiation
• Use of the experience gained from the application of the existing accessible educational material with a scope to the effective development of the new one.
• Development of accessible digital educational material for the 3^rd to 6^th grades of Primary School for students with disability and special educational needs.
• Development of tools for student assessment by the teachers as a basis for the design of an individualized curriculum.
• Teacher training
• Update, sensitization and publicity actions
• Evaluation of the Operation

Furthermore, both in-person and distant training of General and Special Education teachers is provided for. The in-person training will take place through the implementation of 26 meetings within schools all over Greece. Distant learning will be implemented through an open electronic educational platform of asynchronous e-learning which allows for the organisation of mass open online iepX courses (Massive Open Online Courses – MOOC) with video lectures, quizzes and regular assignments. The asychronous e-learning platform (iepX) will be created based on the popular asychronous e-learning platform OpenEdX which has been developed in Python using the Django framework, while it utilizes many tools of the latest technology, such as Ansible, Vragrant a.o. in order to facilitate development and installation in an immense range of devices. OpenEdX has been developed by the non-profitable organization edX, which was founded by MIT and Harvard universities and it is the platform behind the popular service https://www.edx.org.

The educational portal of “prosvasimo.gr”

“Prosvasimo” (http://www.prosvasimo.gr) is an educational portal addressed to teachers, parents and all students with disabilities and /or special educational needs, in Primary Education mainly. The above digital educational material can also be used by the students of Special Vocational Education and Training Schools (EEEEK) in secondary education. The digital educational material includes a large collection of free downloadable Special and General Education software, an online dictionary of the Greek Sign Language, a platform of digital story repository in Greek Sign Language with interactive subtitles and an advanced word-phrase search possibility, the UNO convention for the rights of people with special needs in all accessible forms, special fonts books and guides for teachers and parents in digital form and many more.

Visitation statistics for the period 04/04/2017-04/04/2018 (source Google Analytics): Users: 42.002, New Users: 41.676, Connection times: 65.953, Number of connection times per user: 1,57, page views: 355.729, Pages / connection time 5,39, Average duration of connection time: 00:03:14, Bounce rate: 0,20%.

Co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) within the framework of the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning 2014-2020”.

Project Manager: Vassileios Kourbetis]