Inclusive education: Strategies and opportunities for preparing teachers through the use of ICT in the Italian compulsory school

The focus of this paper is on the importance of preparing teachers for inclusive education through the acquisition of disciplinary competencies and integrated and strategic use of educational technology. The inclusion is a crucial part of the school at the base of the principle of equal opportunities. The paper analyze the use of ICT in the italian scenario - to support the learning of learners with disabilities and special educational needs in inclusive settings within the compulsory school sector. The Article 40 of the Salamanca Framework for Action indicates "Appropriate preparation of all educational personnel stands out as a key factor in promoting progress towards inclusive schools". This means that teachers need to learn the strategies to promote diversity and inclusion strategies in a learning environment for all students, including students with special needs to grow

Smart Environments design: the SPLASH project case. Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society

This paper describes the process of collaborative design of a Smart Environment developed for the school context. The Living Lab project entitled “SPLASH” (“Smart platform for learning and active social habitat”) will be presented in the following pages. We will describe the whole process of the platform design: from the implementation of the layout and the functionalities of the digital environment, up to the first steps of prototype use. A research team composed mainly by an ICT company, teachers and students of two secondary school, and academic researchers, has been involved in a complex process of collaborative design, in order to create the prototype of a smart, social, innovative learning environment. Finally, assessment tools provided within the platform will be described. They have been co-designed with teachers and students of the schools involved in the project

Qualitative learning analytics to detect students’ emotional topography on EduOpen

What emotions can students experience in digitally mediated learning processes? In this paper, we connect Learning Analytics to the Grounded Theory in order to analyse the emotional world of students of 11 courses within the EduOpen (www.eduopen.org) massive open online course (MOOC) platform. Namely, we have used NVivo 11 Plus software and have adopted a bottom–up process to analyse the forum dedicated to students’ selfpresentation from all the courses. Proceeding with the analysis, we defined a set of categories composed of a three-level system. At a more general level, we have two dimensions that we named, respectively, ‘Sentiments about shell’ and ‘Sentiments towards the pulp’. Each of these dimensions is composed of a number of ‘child’ categories and subcategories (which are the nodes in NVivo’s language). After defining the entire set of categories and categorising all the texts (which was a circular process), we run some graphs on NVivo showing the hierarchical structure of the dimensions, the relations between the dimensions and the sources and the clusters of dimensions by coding similarity. The results show how some courses are composed of more negative or more positive sentiments (towards the topic and/or the logistic arrangement of the course) and how the motivation dimension characterises the broad emotional dimension of students heavily. In an evidence-based action-research perspective, these results provide interesting suggestions to personalise the learning activities proposed to students by EduOpen

Re-organization of assessment during the educational emergency in primary and secondary teaching: an Italian case

The educational crisis caused by the pandemic created an unprecedented need to reorganize teaching and learning processes, and the educational assessment became one of the thorniest issues in this rapid change; assessment reorganization entails layered complexities on micro, meso and macro levels. This research is contextualized in a larger digital ethnographic study of three different Italian teacher online communities, uncovering the experience from mixedmethods research. Following this research, a survey instrument was developed and launched. Current paper reports on the survey aiming to uncover the change in assessment practices during the educational emergency while reflecting on teachers’ beliefs on the assessment, the use of remote assessment methods before and during the pandemic, and its re-organization. Findings suggest a significant reorganization of assessment during the COVID-19 educational emergency in all school orders. Through all school orders, teachers perceived a reduction in the importance of assessment during the pandemic and, consequently, used most assessment techniques significantly less than before. However, different methods changed differently, with oral examinations diminishing dramatically and increased use of closed-question quizzes

Videogames e projetos didáticos na educação para a saúde

The paper aims to underline that playing video games is a healthy activity at least for two reasons: it promotes meaningful learnings and fosters healthy lifestyles. The paper is a reflection on a possible didactic revolution where among digital technologies; video games are the principal instruments that are able to design healthy lifestyles in school settings. Scientific and academic research in the educational videogame field and their integration into didactic processes is very active and offers several challenges that school can’t ignore anymore. Video games in the didactic field represent one of the most concrete and innovative examples in redefining the educational syllabus in school systems. Video games also represent strategic teaching tools that allow to manage in a creative way even complex problems, such as health issues, as they stimulate understanding and encourage exploration

AI in board Game-Based Learning

Despite receiving less attention in educational research compared to digital games, boardgames show great potential as a learning environment in many educational scenarios. They promote acquisition of disciplinary knowledge and key competences, generate a sense of physical “togetherness”, can be employed in situation of social and economic disadvantage, and can be modified (or “modded”), for better alignment with disciplinary content. The use of games in European schools is very limited; teachers see the potential of games for learning, but their competence in the use of games for learning is superficial and limited to personal experience. High-performance AI systems such as GPT-4 have emerged as a potential game-changer in education, as a collaborative partner to assist teachers in learning design or to automatize decision-making processes. Despite known limitations, trained LLMs show promise in executing educational tasks. This study explores whether trained High-performance AI can facilitate teachers in the creation of boardgame-based learning units, by bridging their knowledge gap in game knowledge and game-based instructional skills. Using the GDBL ID model, the most comprehensive available instructional model for the creation of boardgame-based learning units, in this exploratory study we instructed Chat GPT to address two key phases of bGBL design: the choice of the game for the learning activity and the personalization of the game for constructive alignment and inclusion. Evaluation of the output by GBL experts highlights the potential of AI tools for bGB

Dati demografici degli studenti e selezione dei MOOC su Eduopen. Uno studio esplorativo sui MOOC erogati da UniFg

Today's generation of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) based on Open EducationalResources (OER) is able to offer high quality education to all those who decide touse this new type of online lifelong learning. Students who decide to enroll in thesecourses represent an increasingly diverse audience in terms of age and place of origin.The literature is being enriched with research studies that study the demographic dataof the students in relation to different variables, including the type of course MOOCchosen.17 universities join the Eduopen project, including the University of Foggia, which in thefirst three years has contributed to the growth and development of the platform by designingand delivering various MOOCs, involving numerous teachers and stimulatingan increasing number of students from non-geographical areas. necessarily surrounding.Specifically, in April 2019 Unifg counts:– 34 Mooc Courses;– 4 Pathway;– 45 Lecturers and Tutors.– more than 8000 students.This contribution presents an exploratory study carried out on the demographic data ofthe students enrolled in the courses offered by the University of Foggia. Specifically, thedemographic data of the students were analyzed based on age, educational qualificationsand city of origin and studied the correlations between these data and the choiceof available courses.La generazione odierna di Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) basati su Open Educational Resources (OER) è in grado di offrire un’istruzione di qualità a tutti coloro che, per varie ragioni, utilizzano questa nuova metodologia di formazione online. Gli studenti che decidono di iscriversi a questi corsi costituiscono un pubblico sempre più diversificato per quanto riguarda età e luogo di provenienza.I ricercatori, educatori, e il pubblico in generale recentemente si è interessato molto su come differisce la provenienza dei corsisti e sulla relazione tra questa variabile e la scelta di un corso MOOC. Al progetto Eduopen aderiscono 17 Atenei, tra cui l’Università di Foggia, che nel primo triennio ha contribuito alla crescita e sviluppo della piattaforma progettando ed erogando diversi MOOC, coinvolgendo numerosi docenti e stimolando un numero sempre più crescente di studenti provenienti da zone geografiche non necessariamente circostanti. Nello specifico, ad aprile 2019 UniFg conta:– 34 Corsi MOOC;– 4 Pathway;– 45 Docenti e Tutor.– più di 8000 studenti.Questo contributo presenta uno studio esplorativo effettuato sui dati demografici degli studenti iscritti ai corsi offerti dall’ateneo foggiano. Nello specifico, sono stati analizzati i dati demografici degli studenti in base a età, titolo di studio e città di provenienza e studiate le correlazioni tra questi dati e la scelta dei corsi disponibili

Professionalità emergenti nella società digitale: l’innovation designer

Technological progress asks for pace that put in crisis the traditional university system. The new challenge of university courses is to be able to prepare professionals with specific competences in line with the evolution of the labour market. Digital transformation sets up rules to establish new professions and digital skills. Since new technologies are skewing toward new industries principles characteristics, then the universities have to adaptto determining new teaching and learning system. Soft skills become essential for the current labour market. It is important to teach and develop these kind of skills and more specifically relational, communicative, and team work skills. In order to be in line with digital revolution, it is necessary to rethink of training models and to promote new research and education paths through the design of new learning environments. This article deals with the definition of new professional figure that works in business and education contexts, the Innovation Designer. The University of Foggia is the promoter of this innovation at national and international job placement scenario thanks to the collaboration with Samsung and through promoting advanced training courses increasing new opportunities in line with labour market needs