ICTs IN EDUCATION FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES. Review of innovative practice.
The Practice Review 'ICTs in Education for People with Disabilities' has been published as part of the IITE ‘ICTs in Education: Best Practices’ series.
How Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can be used in the most effective ways for education of people with disabilities is currently high on the political agendas of all countries, particularly those who have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities (CRPD, 2006). A number of the general principles included in the CRPD are directly linked to UNESCO’s mandate. In this context, the application of ICT is very important as it plays an essential role in supporting high quality education for learners with disabilities.
With this in mind, the UNESCO Institute for Information Technology in Education (UNESCO IITE) and the European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education (the Agency) agreed in 2010 to combine their expertise in this field and collaborate on the development of a Review of innovative practice. The intention for the review was to build on findings from past work – notably UNESCO IITE’s activities in this area and in particular ICTs in Education for People with Special Needs: Specialized Training Course (2006) and the Agency’s ICT in Special Needs Education project related work.
The goal of this Review is to present concrete examples of the use of ICT in different educational settings in order to show the real possibilities of ICT as a tool for supporting learning and ultimately inclusion for people with disabilities.
The review presents 12 Case Studies and over 20 Vignettes (short focussed illustrations of practice) linked to the four ICT related themes: personal access to information and knowledge, learning and teaching situations, personal communication and interaction, and finally, access to educational administrative procedures for people with disabilities. The examples come from 18 different countries, covering Arabic speaking countries, Latin America, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and European Countries.
