Abstract:

The aim of our paper is to present our experience in teaching of Roma children using mobile devices. This is done within the mRIDGE project. One of the main objectives of the "mRIDGE" project is to attract and retain Roma students in school through the attractiveness, innovation and visualization using "augmented reality" technology. Naturally behind this goal is also the goal of supporting the work of a teacher working with marginalized groups for whom education is not a priority. The acquisition of mobile devices compensates for the lack of technology for Roma students while the use of digital resources involves the group in the contemporary context of the information society. The feeling of a child living in extreme poverty that he/she can be equated with others is essentially overcoming the imbalance in the group and leads to an increase in motivation and therefore a guarantee for the progress of the integrative processes.

A few years before the start of the project, the school set as its main strategic goal the improvement of the educational environment through the ICT, qualification and realization of the idea of equality in the differences. The idea for inclusion of mobile technologies in the teaching overlooks the strategy, and after the end of the experiments, it reformulated our overall strategic thinking by being able to put the pedagogical team in a completely new, contemporary and open-minded technological and innovation environment. Thus, the main goal is no longer to improve, but to unblock the educational environment. The very notion of educational environment no longer only fits within the school's boundaries - classroom, school corridors, school library, science lab, but also family, sports club, etc. and last but not least the student's mobile device. The teacher has stopped thinking of the student’s cell phone as an enemy, but as a tool in the educational process. Significant progress has been made in the education process in natural science both for students and for teachers. The progress was found and reported by a pilot experiment in two subjects: “Man and Nature” and “Physics and Astronomy”. The digital resources, compiled in a comprehensible and effective way for the group, increase the percentage of memory, activates different senses, influences emotionality and provokes a thought process.

Keywords:

Enhancing of interactivity in teaching, teaching of Roma children, mobile devices.