Abstract:

This paper presents a proposal for structuring in a inclusive MOOC an already validated set of post-graduation courses in the field of the technologies applied to education. Promoted by the significant increase of large scale internet access, many audiences turned to the web and its resources, for learning and inspiration, with a diverse set of skills and intents. MOOC - Open and Mass Online Course - is a learning model, supported on web tools, that is accessible to anyone with a minimum of digital literacy. The inclusive MOOC aims to promote the social inclusion of the deaf and blind communities.

Promoting equal opportunities to all and assuring the social inclusion of the disadvantaged is one of the main concerns of modern societies and a key topic in the European Higher Education field. Nevertheless, despite the efforts being made there is still not enough support for the deaf and blind communities.

MOOCs are relatively new in the Portuguese higher education context but very popular abroad. MOOCs aims to close the gap between information and its seekers. Under the MOOC learning module, an unlimited number of trainees may attend a class with a single teacher. Personalized training is promoted with adjustable schedules. The MOOC is certified.

The use of new technologies, allied to sound educational practices, will lead to a strong human cognitive development able of providing full access to the digital world for blind and/or hearing impaired people.

It is intended to create a pedagogical and inclusive MOOC model that allows the integration of deaf and blind community with support of some tools allowing, inclusion and equal opportunities.

Creating a pedagogical MOOC model and integrate it with the Virtual Sign system which allows the automatic translation in real-time between text/voice/gesture, will create the digital educational resources for deaf and blind, contributing in this way to their integration into society.

The Quantitative Evaluation Framework (QEF) approach was selected for the evaluation to highlight the strengths and limitations of the inclusive MOOC. The approach has been adapted so that the essential criteria are assessed in a pre-evaluation phase, covering the general usage requirements.

Keywords:

Social Inclusion, Deaf Community, Blind Community, Sign Language, Online Courses, Post-Graduation, MOOC, Education.