European Certification of ICT Skills for People
with mental Disabilities
Final Report
133948-LLP-2007-PL-Leonardo-LMP
Public Part
European Certification of ICT Skills for People with mental Disabilities
Project information
Project acronym:
EASY ICT
Project title:
European Certification of ICT Skills for People
with mental Disabilities
Project number:
133948-LLP-2007-PL-Leonardo-LMP
Sub-programme or KA:
Leonardo-Development of Innovation
Project website:
http://www.easyict.eu
Reporting period:
From
To
1/12/2007
30/11/2009
Report version:
Final
Date of preparation:
31/01/2010
Beneficiary organisation:
Społeczna Wyższa Szkoła Przedsiębiorczości I
Zarządzania
Project coordinator:
Joanna Szczecińska
Project coordinator organisation:
Społeczna Wyższa Szkoła Przedsiębiorczości I
Zarządzania
Project coordinator telephone number:
+ 48 42 664 2278
Project coordinator email address:
jszczecinska@swspiz.pl
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained
therein.
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© 2008 Copyright Education, Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency.
The document may be freely copied and distributed provided that no modifications are made, that the
source is acknowledged and that this copyright notice is included.
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Executive Summary
The problem identified by the partnership might be defined as exclusion of intellectual disabled people
form information society by depriving them of formal structures and tools to undergo assessment of their
ICT skills acquired through formal, non-formal and informal education. That is why the main aim of the
project is to include this particular group in information society and in this way prevent them from
becoming the most disprivillaged society members. The main aim is going to be achieved by:
· development of certification framework, which will allow institutions to run internationally, recognized
examinations,
· creation of online testing environment which will help in assessing ICT skills
· creation of administration environment which will help in administrating the whole process
· training institutions to run certified examinations and use the tool.
In the first year of the project partnership created procedures and rules for certification ( syllabus and
description of the skills) and the first version of the certification platform. Partnership has established
also contacts with the schools, where the pilot test will be provided. Also first part of the disseminationthat the most general – was done- like meeting with the teachers, information campaign that project
exist, promotional materials ( leaflets, posters, gadgets est.)
The second year of the project was dedicated to the evaluation of the projects results by the future
users, implementation of the possible corrections according the evaluation results and production of the
final products. In the second year dissemination was more concrete and focus oriented and at the end
of the project partnership created exploitation plan and marketing strategy.
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Table of Contents
1.
PROJECT OBJECTIVES .................................................................................... 6
2.
PROJECT APPROACH ...................................................................................... 7
3.
PROJECT OUTCOMES & RESULTS................................................................. 9
4.
PARTNERSHIPS .............................................................................................. 10
5.
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE .............................................................................. 12
6.
CONTRIBUTION TO EU POLICIES ................................................................. 13
7.
EXTRA HEADING/SECTION ............................................................................ 14
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1.
Project Objectives
The overall aim of the project is to include intellectual disabled people in the information society
and in this way decrease e-skills gap (digital divide) which is being particularly noticeable among this
target group. To include intellectual disabled people in the information society means also to make the
society aware of such a possibility. Average society members are not aware of the fact, that people who
do not read, do not speak, do not hear, and have touch-based or motor-based limitations are still able to
use computer and Internet.
The main overall objective will be achieved by number of specific objectives. To name the most
important ones:
· Setting up certification framework for assessing ICT skills of youngsters with intellectual disability
· Developing online testing tool for testing digital skills of youngsters with intellectual disability
· Developing online administration tool for managing the testing and certification process
· Providing ICT teachers, therapists with guidelines for preparing learners to take the examination
The educational system will have certification framework which will not exclude people because of their
disability thought Europe. This framework will also influence quality of ICT education (either formal or
non-formal) by proper assessment of the learners’ special needs. Institutions and ICT teachers will
possess the testing tool to access e-skills of disabled people, apart form the testing tool they will also
have an administration platform to mange the certification and testing process. And in the end people
with intellectual disability will have possibility to undergo the certification of their ICT skills.
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2.
Project Approach
Innovation of the project
New idea – proposal develops new idea on assessing ICT skills of intellectual disabled by establishing
patterns of assessment and possible ways of certification. The project focuses on practically unexplored
subject of ICT for the benefit of intellectual disabled people. ICT skills of this target group neither have
been formally assessed so far, nor certificated in any way, especially in the framework of internationally
recognized certificate. This outcome refers definitely to the second aspect of innovation - new method –
nobody tried to assess ICT skills of this group in the scope of the certified examinations and with the
support of the online tool. New device - providing intellectual disabled youngsters with online tool which
is totally new, created especially for the purpose of the project. Sound files which will accompanied by
flash movies will guide those users in the application.
After the identification of needs in the state of art the partnership addressed those needs in the best
possible way, it means it is designed to give comprehensive approach to the problem, not only by
designing the structure, but also by giving the tools to handle the structure (testing tool, administrative
portal, implementation guide, certification documents, patterns of certificates), and to equip short term
target group with knowledge and skills to implement designed structure. Each part of the comprehensive
approach addresses: the need of educational system by delivering the certification framework for
assessing ICT skills of intellectual disabled people (all methods, tools, procedures held to deliver a proof
of qualifications/competences after a learning process - formal, non-formal or informal).
Definition of set of ICT skills for each level of digital literacy was the first output of the project. Definition
of those e-skills addressed the needs of educational institutions, as well as IT teachers. This gave them
objective reference point to define what learners can do and what they can not. The needs of institutions
were addressed by developing online tool (testing tool and administrative portal) which will be used
directly to assess ICT skills of intellectual disabled people in the certification process. Testing portal
works as an examination tool, while administrative part is used by examiner to handle the certification
process.
The pedagogical materials are developed for teacher and administrative staff (trainees). All of them are delivered
based on the constructivist approach which puts emphasis on the previous experiences of learners (trainees).
During the training the methodology of computer assisted learning is incorporated, some materials are available
as downloaded in the section training of the website, and the training has practical part, which learns how to use
the platform by self experience.
In general, the learning objectives for candidates, who will be using Easy ICT platform was defined as follows.
The candidates:
1. have a positive attitude towards ICT and are willing to use ICT in support of their learning;
2. use ICT in a safe, sensible and appropriate way;
3. are able to practise independently in an ICT supported learning environment;
4. are able to study independently in an ICT supported learning environment;
5. are able to use ICT to express their own ideas in a creative way;
6. can retrieve, process and save digital information that is appropriate for them, by means of ICT;
7. are able to use ICT in presenting information to others;
8. are able to use ICT to communicate in a safe, sensible and appropriate way.
The skills required to meet these objectives are presented in the ICT-diamant.
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3.
Project Outcomes & Results
- Description of the ICT skills relevant for young people with intellectual disability- The set of
identified and described skills grouped according to the level of disability
- On-line testing tool- has following options: definition of competences, creation of test-questions,
assign test-questions to a competence test (a competence test consists of several questions, testing a
specific competence), assign the competence test to a candidate. The competence test is supervised by
a coach testing tool which will be used by teachers assessing ICT skills of people with intellectual
disabilities as well as for those being in charge of administration of certified examinations. The
pedagogical part is a base for technicians to develop the tool which will act as a support in assessing
ICT skills. Testing portal works as an interactive assessment tool, while administrative portal is used by
assessors to handle the individual screening and certification process
- On-line administrative platform – This portal is developed in order to facilitate administrators and
teachers work with examinations and testing procedures. The portal allows all organizations to register
clients, choose clients, assign tests to each client or the group of clients, make examination reports and
prepare progress reports of each client.
- Examination procedures and documents- set of procedures which must be obeyed in order to run
the examination and to take part in it and set of documents which will be used by applicants to register
for the examination
- Recommendations on potential certification bodies - set of criteria that institutions have to meet
and examples of potential certification bodies, which would run the certificated examinations in each
partner country, definition the selection criteria: sector, scope, and link to the long term target groups.
- Implementation guide: description of the tool which is testing tool and administration portal,
description of procedures within the examination process, guide of technical use of the portal and
testing tool.
- Training programme for teachers, who will provide certification
- Training materials for teachers
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4.
Partnerships
1. Academy of Management (Poland)– coordinator
The Academy of Management is a private University situated in the second biggest city in Poland, Lodz.
It was established by the Association of Polish Educators in January 1995. The Academy offers BA, MA
studies and post-graduate courses in following areas: Management and Marketing, International
Relations, Banking, Philology, Computer Science. The Academy of Management is the centre of IT
studies, since it offers program in Computer Science and organizes number of ICT courses for different
target groups (women, unemployed etc). The program in IT offers following specializations:
Programming Engineering, Computer networks and systems, Teleinformatics. The student environment
is animated by number of IT experts who teach in enlisted specializations. Since the Academy
implements internationalization strategy number of international activities are held in the institution such
as: student and teaching staff exchange, cooperation with foreign academic centres, organizing
international conferences, seminars, etc. Dealing with international dimension on institutional level is
facilitated by qualified staff, also by specially developed administrative entities like International Relation
Office or International Project Department.
2. Katholieke Hogeschool Kempen ( Belgium)
KHKempen is a university college with offering bachelor and master degrees in de Kempen, a region in
Flanders (Belgium). KHKempen has several research and development projects in the area of easy-toread language and web site accessibility for people with mental disabilities. As a coordinator and
partner KHKempen was involved in several EU-projects. KHKempen can rely on a multidisciplinary
team of experts in its 10 departments and has a research group that with ICT and Inclusion as its
primary focus. Within this research group (www.k-point.be) several projects, related to the subject are
currently running.
3. Social Innovative Network Dr. Pretis (Austria)
S.I.N:N. is an internationally active reseach, counselling and training enterprise, registered in Graz,
Austria. S.I.N.N. is primarily dealing with quality management, dissemination and certification in the field
of disability, furthermore regarding needs assessment (including market research), evaluation and
training for professionals working with disadvantaged groups (children with disability, frontline workers
assisting PwD). S.I.N.N. coordinated a Leonardo da Vinci pilot project (www.eqm-pd.com) aiming to
increase the quality of professional assistance for PwD and initiating certification processes (via online
assessment instrument) for services supporting PwD. S.I.N.N. pays attention to full participation of PwD
and aims to include PwD at every stage of the project. Both
within eqm-pd and ebiff project S.I.N.N. was faced with certification processes and recognition of (prior)
learning processes of professionals. Implementing VET systems therefore is a next logic steps of the
development of S.I.N.N. S.I.N.N. understands evaluation and certification as dialogue processes, based
on transparency and respect towards the partner. S.I.N.N. primarily focuses its activities in East
European countries.
4. Kutahya Local Education Directorate (Turkey)
Kutahya Local Education Directorate is a public organization which workspaces are providing the
sustainability and the efficiency of education. It makes necessary arrangements and audits the schools,
the teachers, the process and the quality of the education. In Kutahya province there are 10 schools for
mentally disabled students (3 of them are public and 7 of them are private education centres). Totally
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there are 85 schools which are located in Kutahya province. The teachers of the mentally disabled
schools attend ICT courses and in-service trainings which are organized by computer teacher trainers in
Kutahya Local Education Directorate.
5. ACADEMY APPLIED PSYCOLOGY (Italy)
The Academia Psicologia Applicata (A.P.A.) is an association formed by psychologists with good
competence and experience in the fields of the psychology, psychotherapy, training and research.
Association has a team composed of 40 trainers who are specialized psychologists. They implement
more than 100 training opportunities for the schools. Association is involved in a lot of training courses
as specialist on sensibilitation, information and prevention of psychological disorders on children and
adult, as well as health promotion. Its mission is to create a place that can be a point of reference for the
personal and professional training and development, to dedicate personal and professional experience
to promote cultural integration and health of every man, coherently with the World Health Organization
methodology, to work with schools and young people (an area of A.P.A. is specifically equipped for), to
be an “info Point” for Youth about EU and youth policies (an area of A.P.A. is specifically equipped for).
A.P.A. is also referent of a net of associations and private societies by the manifold competences and
sectors of intervention (ICT services, research and development, e-learning, web solution: It area net.
Accredited Training Organizations: IDEA; formAzione Europea; Cooperativa Nuovi Orizzonti; Panormus;
Acas; Isfordd; Agency for the tourist development: Go Sicily; publicity agency: ADDUMA).
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5.
Plans for the Future
Partner institution are different and they would like to use Easy Ict platform in the different way – some
of them thinking about commercialization of the product, some of them not.
Turkey and Belgium partner will try to offer EACYICT platform as official certification tool to the
educational national authorities. But all partners will use this platform to train teachers in certification
intellectual disabled learners.
Partnership already established some steps to marketing project’ products in the future:
- created local network of interest in the topic
- negotiation with the ECDL Foundation to give wider perspective to the project results
- adding project products to the list of the best practice in the European Network of Inclusive
Education
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6.
Contribution to EU policies
Contribution to the Lisbon Education & Training Progress Indicators:
Project is focused on the reduction percentage of pupils with reading literacy proficiency “level1” and
lower on the PISA reading literacy scale and encouragement population aged 25-64 to participation in
education and training.
The testing tool which will be developed within the project will measure literacy of youngsters with
mental disability. One of the tests provided in the tool will be entirely devoted to this subject. The other
indicator is connected with the trainings that are going to be organized in the project framework. Due to
participation in the training adults will raise their qualifications.
Lisbon Key Competences- Digital competences
The project directly addresses the digital competences since it concentrates on providing the
certification framework and the tool to measure ICT skills. Due to the proposal the quality of teaching
digital competences will be enhanced and non direct target group (mentally disabled) will have more
motivation to achieve next stages of digital literacy.
By delivering certification framework and tools the project will contribute to the recognition of
qualifications. ICT skills of youngsters with mental disability will be internationally recognized.
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7.
Extra Heading/Section
Enter your text here
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