DIGITAL APPLICATIONS FOR SPECIAL CHILDREN

<< Background >>Technology in special education is a tool that helps to balance the differences between individuals. By using technology in special education, we aim to reduce the situations where students are inadequate, to make positive progress in daily life, academic skills, to catch up with their peers and to enable them to integrate with the society. From this point of view, we aim to learn digital course materials by developing cooperation with our stakeholders. In addition we want to improve teachers skills in English language and STEAM activities. We face many challenges in teaching special needs students. By sharing ideas, work and methods we want to be more proactive in our classes.<< Objectives >>1-improve the use of technologies(STEAM and ICT),2-reduce the situations were students are inadequate; 3-make positive progress in daily life; 4 - integration in the society; 5 - improve language skills; 6 - improve academic skills<< Implementation >>Monthly coordination meetings have been held with the coordinators and teachers participating in the project of the four schools. Minutes of each meeting have been written and saved in the drive folder using a .pdf extension. The Google drive has been structured and has been used as a bank for sharing and editing the ongoing information relative to all the activities and products of the project .The contest project logo was developed integrating arts and IT subjects in each school. A Google site (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bsrE6AaOYoaGP5hKdhSWJeX2dVANjzEd ) was created and structured. Currently includes information about the project, the participating schools , and logos. Now as the project is closed, the google drive contains all the activities held during the project; several activities were carried out, including the use of shared digital applications among all partners, site visits, work meetings, collaborations with external organizations, and the creation of materials and contents.<< Results >>The outputs can be seen in the projects drive; the teachers work with their students in a different platforms (e.g. story Teller ) Project presentations and activities were held with the participation of teachers in the first mobility to Lithuania; different schools were visited, different educational practices were observed; the new school year begun with the preparation of the second mobility to Ankara. All predicted mobilities were performed as calendarization: Turkey, Italia and Portugal and in each mobility the participants come from different areas of education ( teachers, social workers, psychologists and special education teachers), allowing mobilities to be more specialized. We could involve many organizations ( in Portugal, for example, CERCI, APPC, Fundação Nuno Silveira) and also the parents of the students (for example in Turkey, some mothers knitted the project's mascot, and in all countries parents were invited to participate in some activities).The project was disclosed through social media , the school community, the official webpage of each school , with the description of the activities that were carried out.