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ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 132 (2014) 357 – 363

6th International Conference on Intercultural Education “Education and Health: From a transcultural perspective”

Characterization of inclusive practices in schools with education technology Alicia González Péreza* a

University of Seville, S/n Pirotecnia Street, Seville, 41013, Spain

Abstract This paper related to research project called ‘Research focuses on promoting an inclusive school supported in the information and communication technologies’ that was developed in 2010. It was funded by Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID). Three partners from Brazil, Colombia and Spain participated in it. The purpose of this paper was to identify inclusive practices preferably with educational technologies that take place in mainstream schools in Andalucía in three different levels: inclusive policies, inclusive culture and inclusive practices. The findings revealed that teachers are the key to reinforce the inclusiveness and the use of educational technology, because at the end they have the responsibility to design and promote changes in their classes and in the school culture. © 2014 2014 The TheAuthors. Authors.Published Publishedby byElsevier ElsevierLtd. Ltd.Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. © Selectionand andpeer-review peer-reviewunder underresponsibility responsibilityofofHUM-665 Encarnación Soriano, Christine Sleeter María Antonia Casanova. Selection Research Group “Research and and Evaluation in Intercultural Education”. Keywords: Inclusivenes; compulsory education; good practices; inclusive practices; education technology;

1. Introduction Educational Technology (ET) can be an appropriate tool for creating flexible learning environments to students who have personal learning needs to access to Internet. The quality education given to students is gaining importance day by day and educational technology could make learning more accessible to a wider group of students. (Heemskerk, Volman, Dam and Admiraal, 2011). Schools use educational technologies to a different extent and in different ways, and, even within schools, students have different possibilities to experience working with educational technology. (Schofield and Davidson,

* Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected]

1877-0428 © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of HUM-665 Research Group “Research and Evaluation in Intercultural Education”. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.04.322

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2002; Solomon, 2002) These differences tend to be related to gender, socio-cultural background, learning needs, ethnicity, religious, students at risk to drop-out, among others. Moreover, the experiences of students working with a particular educational tool are, to a large extent, determined by their experiences with information and communication technologies (ICT) outside school as well as their interests, attitudes and learning approaches. (Heemskerk, Volman, Dam and Admiraal, 2011). One of the main barriers in the practice of inclusive education is represented by the teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion and its principles. These attitudes are influenced by several factors such as: the degree of children difficulties, the nature of children disabilities, the teachers experience with children, the trust in their own capabilities to implement inclusive activities (the teacher’ preparedness for integrated classrooms) or the expectations towards the children no matter what are the differences between them, the curricula and so on. (Unianu, 2012). In order to support the learning for all, differences between students should be taken into account and look for inclusive practices that can be implemented in other contexts. For that, ‘inclusive practices’ have to promote technological literacy, critic thinking, learn from the new and unknown, and create learning communities. (Law, Chow and Allan, 2005). Other authors (De Pablos and González, 2007) think that ‘good practice’ is a practice which transforms the habitual procedures, and it is a key to change traditional practices. Kozma and Anderson (2002) point other characteristics out to develop successful 'inclusive practices': • Engage students in collaborative actions, project-based learning, and real-world problems and projects. • Develop technological skills that allow students search for, organize, and analyze information, communicate and express their ideas in a variety of media forms. • Provide students with individualized instruction, customized to meet the needs of students with different entry levels, interests, or conceptual difficulties. • Address issues for equity with students of different genders or ethnic or social groups and/or provide access to instruction or information for students who would not have access otherwise because of geographic or socioeconomic reason. • ‘Break down the walls’ of the classroom, for example, by extending the school day, changing the organization of the class, or involving other people (such as parents, scientists, or business professionals) in the education process. 2. Object of study The study reported in this article is part of a broader research project called ‘Research focuses on promoting an inclusive school supported in the information and communication technologies’ that was developed in 2010. It was funded by Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and three partners from Brazil, Colombia and Spain have been working together. The main purpose of the study was to identify and describe inclusive practices preferably with educational technologies that took place in mainstream schools in Andalucía, in three different levels: inclusive policies, inclusive culture and inclusive practices. 3. Methodology The data had been collected through a questionnaire which had close and open questions. The questionnaire had been configured in five main sections which had been focused on inclusive policies, characterization of inclusive practices, impact of the implementation of inclusive practices, enablers and barriers to develop inclusive practices and values involved in the development of inclusive practices. The schools were selected through a rigorous process. Firstly, an interview was arranged with the headmaster to know if teachers from his school developed inclusive practices in their classes or in the center. After that, teachers were asked about the concept of inclusivity that has guided their educational practice.

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Their answers were analyzed in a sample of 339 Andalusian teachers from primary and secondary schools, where 45, 1% was female and 39, 8% male. The other teachers did not check the sex box. Thus I am going to consider the replies of teachers that answered this open question. To solve this aim all information extracted from the answers was organized according to Index for Inclusion of Ainscow, Booth, Black-Hawkins, Vaughan and Shaw (2000) that considers indicators about inclusive policies, inclusive cultures and inclusive practices. Also this data source was used as part of the methodology in order to scrutinize in what sense schools are inclusive. 4. Results Next, we summarize all the answers collected in the open questions of the questionnaire. In this analysis we can see a number of actions that teachers have taken into account and implemented in their schools. To determinate the extent of inclusiveness at school, we distinguish between inclusive practices in three levels: in the classroom, in the community and through the political. First level has included actions referring to a school for all where people make aware that it is important create projects to promote inclusive practices in schools. For instance, promote coeducation, peace, sustainability, reduce socio-cultural differences and prevent early school leaving and drop-out. But also teachers have to work to improve teaching and learning, promote participating of everybody who are in the educational community and deal the diversity. Table1. Characteristics of inclusive practices support with educational technology: Inclusive policies. -Projects of coeducation. -Project to create a school as a peace space. -Project for a school more inclusive. -Project for a sustainability school. -Project to improve social and intercultural coexistence (workshop, theatre, symposium, and others) School for all

-Project to promote the use and the integration of the information and communication technologies (ICT) in schools and classes for students, teachers and families. -Remove built barriers and adapt the architecture of the center for disable people. -Opening plan center to welcome new families and students. -Management team is coordinated to achieve an inclusive school. -Develop an inclusive curricular project. -Programs to prevent early school leaving. -Take part of the internal rules of the center to deal the diversity. -Monitoring and control of absenteeism: gypsies, immigrant, ethnic minorities, low class among others. -Reinforce and support students with learning disabilities. -Priority treatment for students with economic difficulties in areas such as dining, transport, material acquisitions or extracurricular activities.

Deal the diversity

-Integrate students from other countries, with other languages or from other ethnicities in ordinary groups. -Support teacher in classrooms where there are disable people. -Early identification of students at risk to avoid drop-out. -Participate in innovative courses, seminars and conferences where we can find ways to work about inclusiveness in schools. -Be conscientious of the problems and dangers that are implied when we use Internet.

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Although the concept of inclusive schooling has been introduced by the Salamanca statement and framework for action on special needs education (UNESCO, 1994), it is constantly revised and broadened to meet the goals of Education for all. Most importantly, the narrow definition of inclusion as special needs education, mainly use to address the needs of children with disabilities, has been shifted to address the exclusion of all marginalized, excluded and vulnerable children. (Nguyen, 2010). This is why schools have to promote projects to prevent the absenteeism, to avoid drop-out, to work with disable people, among others. However school has to understand the causes behind such kind of problems to implement actions according to the needs. The second level has included actions referring to create an inclusive culture oriented towards creating a safe, receiving, collaborative, and stimulating environment, where everyone is valued. It aims to develop inclusive values to share among teachers, students, and families. So that, they are transmitted to all new members that have access to the community. Table2. Characteristics of inclusive practices support with educational technology: Inclusive culture. -Develop a collaborative culture between teachers, headmasters, students, parents and policy makers. -Promote volunteerism and community work with families in schools. -Encourage to develop learning communities. -Improve communications channels with families and students through information and communications Built a community

technologies. -Connect schools with the neighborhood, local institutions, and families. -Inform to parents about behavior and attendance of their children and promote the use of information and communication technologies to do that. -Create ‘parent schools’ and support them from schools. -Promote teacher participation in the ICT training. -Teachers are able to make plans about coexistence, diversity and equality.

Establish inclusive values

-Schools should develop an observatory where inclusiveness will be studied in all dimensions. -The school promotes respect and appreciation of difference. -The school works in values such as: cooperative and collaborative work, participation, social responsibility, solidarity, equality, diversity, respect, among others.

For sure, educational technologies can be an appropriate tool for creating flexible learning environments and virtual communities. According to Dussel and Quevedo (2010) the information and communication technologies not only have been created different and new cultural practices but also new ways of appropriation. It makes reference to the place that technologies have in the daily lives of people and the diversity of uses and sense that each one give them. If these practices will be transferred to the diversity of educational contexts we would see many differences in how these practices take place in each school because of the values and processes are different. Jenkins emphasizes about the importance of affordances to make reference to the actions and procedures that enable new ways of interaction with a culture, more participative, more creative, with genuine appropriations. (Dussel and Quevedo, 2010). The third level has included actions referring to develop inclusive practices according to the inclusive policies that have been implemented in a specific context. Also it tries to ensure that activities which take place in classroom or out class encourage the participation of all students, and take into account the knowledge and experience of students, teachers and families. At this level we can realize about the importance that educational technologies have in class and if teachers used strategies to draw students into use of the educational technologies. It is an indicator to make learning more accessible to a wider group of students.

Alicia González Pérez / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 132 (2014) 357 – 363 Table3. Characteristics of inclusive practices support with educational technology: Inclusive practices. -Promote the use of ICT in all levels and subjects regularly. -Develop a constructive pedagogy. -Stimulate workgroups, and collaborative and cooperative work. -Create learning communities to involve all educational community, in teaching and learning processes. Performance teaching and learning process

-Give more autonomy to teachers in order to program and develop inclusive activities. -Promote digital tutoring. -Monitoring the progress of the students and attendance. -Flexible management: curriculum support, flexible tutoring and group division. -Develop different levels of depth in tasks. -Specific educational action plan to help students with special educational needs. -Promote ICT educational training to apply in class. -Design coeducative materials as electronic books, among others. -Create a space to use educational technology and interactive games in early and primary education. -Design and promote the use of the educational blogs and virtual environments to improve academic performance. -Provide virtual classrooms with educational content.

Manage resources: human, material and training

-Updating and maintaining the center´s website. -Optimizing technology resources. -Offer through ‘Educavision’ or other platforms an educational activity to reinforce knowledge acquired in schools. -Design electronic material for people with special educational needs and improve e-accessibility for them. -Promote the use of digital journals in class. -Provide computers and other digital devices to use for all. -Adapting educational technology to students with special educational needs.

Hence, educational technologies are at the glance of re-thinking the education and the processes of how students learn. But also, a wide range of resources such as educational technologies (interactive games, educational platform, open sources, digital journal,…) and digital tools (electronic books, iPad, whiteboards,…) are involved in the educational processes and meaningfully shape our culture. In such a world, more and more people have the capacity to take media into their own hands, creating and sharing what they know and how they see the world. Young people are at the heart of these changes. Young people in online forums are engaging in close reading activities; they are recording impressions, including their reflections on what they read, through blogs, online journals, video reflections, social networks, and microblogging platforms. (Jenkins, Kelley, Clinton, McWilliams, Pitts-Wiley, and Reilly, 2013). Finally, according to Ainscow (2010) a methodology for developing inclusive practices must take account social processes of learning that go on within particular contexts. 5. Conclusions This research note reveals some noteworthy aspects and some that would require further investigation. In the first place, the study corroborates what teachers understand about inclusive practices in the context of schools. Our analysis show that inclusive practices preferably with educational technology indeed are extended in three levels, particularly in the level that make reference to inclusive practices in class. Teachers are the key to reinforce the inclusiveness and the use of educational technology, because at the end they have the responsibility to design and promote changes in their classes. However the use of educational

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technology by itself may not necessarily promote equally inclusiveness for all students. This situation conflicts with the aim of equality in education, and this is why teachers and policy-makers have to respond to these inequities in various ways and look for solutions. According to González-Pérez (2012) inclusive practices with educational technologies have relation with the attitudes that teachers have about educational technology resources, teaching approaches and the practices that students have to perform in class. However leadership practice is a crucial element in gearing education systems towards inclusive values and bringing about sustainable change. (Ainscow and Sandill, 2010). Other consideration to think about is that students with low academic achievement can be highly competent with educational video games and other educational technologies. (Ito, 2010). For that, it is necessary combine technical procedures, and pedagogical and cultural knowledge to understand what is happening and what we have to do with educational technologies in class and in the context where is the class. Finally, it is important to add that educational technologies can be more and less inclusive tools, specifically in relation to the instructional structure. Thus, the more inclusive tools appear to be more compatible to different ability levels and learning approaches. Acknowledgements This study has been supported by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) with the project ‘Research focuses on promoting an inclusive school supported in the information and communication technologies (ICT)’, agreement No. A/024261/09. References Ainscow, M. and Sandill, A. (2010). Developing inclusive education systems: the role of organizational cultures and leadership, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 14 (4), 401-416. DOI: 10.1080/13603110802504903. Ainscow, M., Booth, T., Black-Hawkins, K., Vaughan, M. and Shaw, L. (2000). The index of inclusion: Developing learning and participation in schools. London: CSIE. Casanova, J. and González-Pérez, A. (2010). Educación inclusiva y otros conceptos afines para el desarrollo de una escuela para todos en la sociedad de la información. Revista Educação, Artes e Inclusão, 1 (3), 197-203. De Pablos, J. and González, T. (2007). Políticas educativas e innovación educativa apoyada en TIC: Sus desarrollos en el ámbito autonómico. II Jornadas Internacionales sobre Políticas Educativas para la Sociedad del Conocimiento, Granada. Dussel, I. and Quevedo, L. A. (2010). Educación y nuevas tecnologías: los desafíos pedagógicos ante el mundo digital. Buenos Aires: Fundación Santillana. Fisher, A. C. (2007). Creating a discourse of difference. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 2, 159-192. González-Pérez, A. (2012). Uso de las TIC a través del desarrollo de microproyectos con alumnos de educación especial. En II Jornadas de Innovación Docente de la Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación “Prácticas Innovadoras en Docencia Universitaria”. Sevilla, 19 de abril de 2012. González-Pérez, A. and Kyoung Gun, H. (2007). E-accessibility through assistive Technologies for people with disabilities in Spain, inside European framework, Journal Children with Education Needs, 18, 47-71. Heemskerk, I., Volman, M., Dam, G. and Admiraal, W. (2011). Social scripts in educational technology and inclusiveness in classroom practice, Teachers and Teaching, 17(1), 35-50. Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M. et al. (2010). Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out. Kids Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press. Jenkins, H., Kelley, W., Clinton, K., McWilliams, J., Pitts-Wiley, R. and Reilly, E. (2013). Reading in a participatory culture. New York: Teachers College Press. Kozma, R. B. and Anderson, R. E. (2002). Qualitative case studies of innovative pedagogical practices using ICT. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18(4), 387-394. Law, N., Chow, A. and Allan, Y. (2005). Methodological approaches to comparing pedagogical innovations using technology. Education and Information Technologies, 10(1-2), 5-18.

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