Abstract:

Introduction:
School represents the natural place of growth not only for the amount of information that is able to convey, but even because this is a social place in which pupils and students acquire rules, norms, self-confidence and learn to manage conflicts and to cooperate.
Nevertheless, there are students that cannot attend school on a regular basis, temporarily or permanently, and this for psychophysical (disorders of the emotional sphere, physical/motor impairments) or health problems (long hospitalisation or cyclic hospital stay due to specific therapeutic protocols).
In the Italian context the right to education is ensured, in these cases, by the Homebound Education service. Moreover there are diseases whose cases are increasingly growing, such as multiple chemical sensitivity, that prevent direct contact of the student with peers and his/her teachers.
Thus, it is necessary to define new models of instruction taking into account the distresses generated by the various situations of disadvantage.
In this case, Web 2.0 and the realization of a virtual classroom can ensure the right to education while satisfying the need for continuity and normality, decreasing the risk of interference with the evolutionary path, of isolation and of a social and cognitive implosion.

Objectives:
Within this framework, an experimental triennial project named TRIS (Network Technologies and Socio-educational Inclusion) is underway, aimed at experimenting innovative solutions from a technological (using intensively web 2.0 tools) and methodological points of view for the educational inclusion of students unable to regularly attend school.

From a methodological point of view, the research evolves along three main strictly complementary directions:
(a) the study and experimentation of educational and methodological approaches oriented to socio-educational inclusion;
(b) the study and experimentation of sustainable technological settings for the application of the above mentioned approaches;
(c) the planning and experimentation of training actions for teachers on the design, management and evaluation of inclusive activities.

Specifically, the objectives of the present work are:
- to investigate how, before the beginning of the experimentation, ICTs and web 2.0 tools were used to promote an inclusive educational process;
- to analyse the evolution of the inclusive process along the first year of experimentation.

Target and tools:
In the first year of experimentation thirty-five teachers distributed along four classrooms were involved with four students not attending school (three students of primary and one of the secondary school).

The obtained data were derived from the administration of:
● a profiling questionnaire for teachers aimed at detecting the educational and generic use of technologies and web tools at school and in everyday life;
● a profiling questionnaire for students aimed at individuating:
○ availability of technology;
○ the use of technologies at home and at school;
○ the self-assessment of competencies on the use of some technologies and web tools;
○ the use of ICT in the relationships with the unattending student;
● the instructional design forms filled by teachers during the training action;
● the interviews to teachers and to unattending students.

Results:
The analysis of the data and the direct observation of the educational activities show a positive evolution about the inclusion of the students cannot attend school.

Keywords:

Inclusive Education, ICTs, BYOD.