The use of mobile technologies and multimedia increases the interest of students, helping them to learn while they are entertained. In the case of students with impairments, learning exercises must be individualized in order to meet their special educational needs. In this context, educators usually intervene during the learning process as qualified experts in order to foster the development of their students' capabilities. Educators must prepare the exercises to be carried out, personalize them, and supervise and guide students whilst they undertake them.
With the objective of facilitating the use of the technology in class, we have designed a single application which runs on mobile devices and which is firstly used by the educators to create and modify exercises as they see fit, and then, by the students to learn while carrying out such exercises. The mobility functionality of the devices means that exercises can be done any time and anywhere, thus promoting the participation of the stakeholders in the learning process and the socialization of the students. We have selected a specific device family well known for its ease of use and offering the accessibility and support to communication and mobility required by this group of users and their educators.
A system comprised of several modules has been proposed in order to separate concerns and follow different phases in the design and use of the application.
We are participating in a national project, collaborating with several Special Education schools. Professionals from the schools set out their requirements for us to address in our specifications, design and prototypes. Prototypes allowed functional and non-functional requirements to be specified, completed and validated.
We conclude that Picaa is an excellent tool for supporting special educational needs adaptations as it:
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Can help develop basic skills, including activities to work on perception, attention, memory, reading and writing, motor skills and reasoning.
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Enables adjustments to be made in the work environment to fit the profile of each student and their interaction, for instance: format of content to be accessible (image, text, sound), interaction with the content (requiring more or less fine motor skill), or screen size.
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Can be used in different curriculum areas as activities can be specified and customized to focus on different content as required in each area.
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Supports communication in the classroom by incorporating an AAC system.
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Is adaptable to several methodologies and learning styles, as it provides generic activities that can then be further tailored into sub-activities.
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Sets the sequence and timing of learning to incorporate a calendar of events for each day. Moreover, its portability allows learning to happen at any time, anywhere, not only in school, so that participants can transfer the learning process to a family setting or to other support groups.
We are currently working on the collaborative extension of the platform in order to address better social skills development, a major deficit area in the case of students with special educational needs.