Abstract:

Web 2.0 technology and ICT can provide students with special needs to communicate, create and connect with others in learning communities.
In particular there are students, with chronic illness or psychological problems absent from schools, unable to take part in a normal educational and training path, because they are domiciled in their own homes or residential communities. In this context many countries guarantee the right to education thanks to homebound instruction that includes programs that were developed from a patchwork of educational policies and statutory law.
Homebound instruction can be defined as a system of educating students who are unable to attend school due to illness (mental or physical) or injury (Telzrow,2001). This involves a certified teacher visiting the student’s home to provide individual instruction.
Background literature investigating the ways in which homebound education is delivered and which is the impact at the student’s social, emotional and cognitive levels, is still poor.
In this paper, some preliminary results of a survey on Homebound Education lead within the Italian context in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Education, and aimed at comprehending how ICT are used to enhance home education processes, will be illustrated.
The survey was run administering an online questionnaire organized in two parts: the former, aimed at detecting synthetic information on teacher’s professional profile; the latter, mainly focused on experiences of homebound education run by the teacher.
The survey brings out that the use of technology in homebound education is not so widespread and that, even within experiences in which teachers availed themselves of technology, the declared learning strategies are to a great extent still anchored to traditional approaches and not wholly coherent with the types of technology used.
Starting from this picture on the actual situation of homebound education in Italy, a new methodological approach has been identified, consisting of a set of interrelated socio-educational scenarios, in which web 2.0 technology plays an important role to support learning, socialization and to reduce forced isolation:
• a Socialization scenario, aimed to promote social presence through the homebound student’s inclusion in the context of “virtual class”;
• an Educational materials sharing scenario, aimed to support the access and sharing of all materials; among peers
• a Collaborative activities scenario, aimed to feel part of an active group and at involving their peers in the participation of collaborative works;
• an Individual activities scenario, aimed to enhance learning process through specific and tailored activities.
This approach have been experimented with two homebound students at upper secondary school level. These experiences, still in progress, have produced significant psychological and educational benefits, especially for the homebound students themselves. They have achieved the educational aims provided in their personalized instructional design plan. About the social aspect, they are able instead to establish relationships with peers, completely absent before this experience. The benefits may also be extended to their classmates, who were able to experiment with new approaches to use technology and interaction among peers with special needs.