Inclusive education: helping teachers to choose ICT resources and to use them effectively

This paper looks at the issue of school inclusion by referring to the concept of Universal Access to Education. It focuses on the strong potential Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) provide to avoid any kind of discrimination among students. The paper also argues that teachers play a fundamental role in capitalising the opportunities offered by new technologies to support the full inclusion of all students in mainstream education systems. In this perspective, to view the Universal Access to Education as a concrete and reachable goal, teachers need to be aware of the ICT potential and they must be able to acquire the suitable knowledge and operational skills to choose and use appropriately this type of resources. Findings of the Teachers' View about new Technologies and Inclusion Questionnaire proposed by ITD-CNR to approximately 300 Italian teachers show that the majority of them (75%) acknowledge that ICT tools and resources may have a great potential to foster and actualize inclusive practices in schools. Notwithstanding this, almost all of them declare that they still need specific information and guidance on how to choose and use the appropriate ICT products to these ends. Two pilot research projects addressing these needs are presented in this paper. One is designed to provide teachers with full and effective information about the accessibility features of educational software. The other is oriented towards the dissemination of know-how and good practices to support the construction, sharing and reuse of "inclusive" pedagogical plans. Such projects have given birth to two specific online services respectively providing information on the accessibility features of educational multimedia products and bringing to light best practices in school inclusion. The basic idea is, in fact, that the process of inclusion can be fostered by means of new technological tools, but in turn it requires changes and modifications in educational contents, approaches, structures and strategies.