Integrate IT

The School Exchange Partnership INTEGRATE IT focused to integrate digital technologies in the special education process to ensure the increased quality of education offered to students with special educational needs - SEN. The main objectives of the project were: • Increasing the integration of digital technologies in the education of students with SEN from partner schools through sharing the best practice • Developing digital competences of students with SEN from partner schools using digital tools • Creating new teaching materials for students with SEN using digital support • Increasing cooperation at the European level through the use of eTwinning portal The partnership has been carried out for 3 years, in the period 01.09.2018-31.08.2021, through the cooperation and collaboration of 3 special schools from Romania, the United Kingdom, and Turkey, and one inclusive school from Italy. The main motivation for having this project was that the students with disabilities face everyday life with multiple difficulties they have to deal with. Through the integration of digital technologies in the education process for students with learning disabilities and for students with mental disabilities, we aim to develop the relevant digital competences necessary in life and in their future work. Partners collaborated within the European partnership team, with a valuable exchange of their experience and explored different possibilities of using digital technology in the learning process to better exploit the potential of ICT, reinforcement of using digital tools, they created and shared through this partnership digital Open Educational Resources adapted for SEN students for different curriculum area, which are under open license being free to download, use and change the content according to the needs of the students. Digital technologies enrich the learning process in a variety of ways and offer learning opportunities to all students including students with disabilities and open up access to a wealth of information and resources. In particular, for students with learning disabilities and for students with mental disabilities, the learning process proved to be more accessible through the project activities when using new technologies as an educational tool, and overcome specific barriers in their learning and more in the perspective of possible access to the labor market in the future. Within the partnership for staff have been organized 4 Short-term joint staff training events in partner countries and online activities through the eTwinning portal and other educational digital tools in which participated students also.In addition to virtual co-operation between students of partner schools on the eTwinning, students have been involved in the projects local activities organized on the topics set out in the partnership. The evaluation at the end of the project Integrate IT revealed increased of using digital technologies in partner schools by the implementation of digital tools and methods shared by partners in each partner school and creating educational tools by teachers participants using digital support to the benefit of students with disabilities. Both students and teachers have been used TWINSPACE of the project Integrate IT, and developed digital competences and cooperation of partners at the European level. All the educational resources OER and the final digital book created in the project for SEN studnts have been shared online through the schools website, Facebook Page of the project, and eTwinning project TWINSPACE to the use of all professionals in the field of special education and other persons interested in the topic.