Abstract:

This study is part of a research that took place at the Special Gymnasium of Athens. It aims to explore how Information and Communication Technologies can be used during learning procedures to students with disabilities, to study of current Informatics Curriculum for the specific category of students, to develop and study teaching scenarios, in order to improve the quality of the learning procedure for the specific category of students and to find methods that will ensure the equal participation of all students during the learning procedure, both in the strict limits of a classroom and the wider borders of each educational activity. It presents a cooperative educational activity using technological tools and its effect on the participation of students, on the quality of cooperation, the sociographics of the students in the classroom and finally the cognitive result is examined. Within the general spirit of curricula, and the goal of enrollment and embodiment, included in our research’s framework, a series of cooperative activities was created for the lesson of Informatics.

Students with physical and multiple disabilities compose a complex and heterogeneous population. In Cooperative Learning, heterogeneous groups are directly connected to efficiency (Slavin, 1991). According to researchers teacher can erase all inequalities and make worthy all differences of the group (Villa et al., 1996). Schulte (1999), based on a long-term research on cooperative learning, suggests the grouping of students with different abilities, skills, personalities and sex within the same classroom. Different “intellects” are the ones contributing to group’s success Cohen (1994). Cooperative learning, supported by ICT, is suggested for students with special needs. However, Tateyama-Sniezek (1990) research has not shown clear relationship between cooperative learning and the success of students with special needs in academic level, throughout a framework which emphasized in their interaction with students without special needs. Free cooperation does not always result in learning (Dillenbourg, 2002). In cooperative learning the success of activities depends both on the distribution of roles to students and the effort to understand that their interaction in the group is the means to achieve a good cooperative outcome. One way to enforce the efficiency of cooperative learning is to structure the interactions together with the students’ participation in specific scenarios. The idea of structuring cooperative learning arises from practical conclusions of the efficiency of cooperative learning. Cooperative scenario is a total of predetermined guidelines that specify the way students should organize the groups, the kind of interaction and cooperation and how to investigate the problem under study. In this research a non categorical approach is applied, that means that children with various disabilities were studied in common (Rowitz, 1988) subsequently, with various specialities and needs. The central axis of the teaching procedure was to make students work together in order to produce a final teamwork result and promote principles of social character. Results are considered as positive. Modifications on the curriculum in order students with disabilities to be taught material suitable to their cognitive-lingual age are needed. The use of a network platform suitably designed is necessary. Several points demand exploration before a complete curriculum will be developed

Keywords:

Didactics of Informatics, students with disabilities, Cooperative Learning.