Digi Teachers Working Online project improved the digital inclusion and opportunities of special needs VET learners

Digitalisation is a major trend in education as a whole, including VET. Live Vocational College was involved in the Digi Teachers project, which aimed to improve the digital skills of VET teachers. 

“What was distinct and special about our project was that all the learners involved were special needs support learners in one way or another,” says Mother Tongue Teacher Karoliina Oksanen from Live Vocational College. 

Learners requiring special needs support cannot be excluded from digitalisation. Instead, they must be provided with opportunities to learn and utilise new digital platforms and tools, just like everyone else. 

“Together with our project partners, we wanted to find out how digitalisation could be utilised when learners have special needs; for example when they face challenges in everyday life or in finding employment.” 

Everyone can benefit from digitalisation, and no one must be left behind when it comes to technological development. Special needs learners may even have a greater need to embrace digitalisation than most, as much of the support offered for inclusion is currently provided online, for example. 

Digitalisation can provide special needs learners with more and better opportunities to study and engage in their own ways. As such, digitalisation also makes it possible to provide better special needs VET. 

The planning of the project began back during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“During the pandemic, it was understood that we need to be better prepared for organising teaching in exceptional situations. On the other hand, we wanted to bring together all the good practices that had been established at the time.”

The project began with the examination of teachers’ existing digital skills together with project partners. Based on the identified needs and Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigcompEdu), a decision was made to develop the online learning resource digiteachers.eu. The website, which is the main output of the project, recorded very high numbers of users during the project. In addition to the website, the project also involved testing the use of open badges. 

The Digi Teachers material is divided into three modules, the foundation of which comes directly from Digital Competence Framework for Educators. It is complemented by the Toolkit, a collection of instructions on how to use different digital tools in teaching. The website also contains a wealth of information on accessibility and how simulations can offer opportunities to students who would otherwise be unable to participate, for example. 

“For example, with VR headsets we can take special needs students anywhere. Or a student who has difficulties participating in social situations can practice them in VR before gradually moving on to face-to-face encounters.” 

When studying, students can also make use of reading applications or writing assistance software, for example. These are just some examples of the many ways in which digitalisation and traditional classroom teaching can support each other. 

Demand for information on digitalisation is high

The pilot included participants from each organisation in the partner network and a total of 29 members of teaching and guidance staff from four countries and project organisations. All of them utilised the material on the website in accordance with their own needs. 

The results were good – during the pilot, many participants earned open badges, the themes of which included digital resources, teaching and learning and increasing the opportunities of learners. 

The project clearly increased the digital skills of the staff of the participating organisations. And most importantly, the project improved the opportunities for special needs learners to utilise digitalisation.  

“We have showcased our project at many events and in networks, garnering a great deal of interest. People clearly have a need for information on how digitalisation can benefit their own work.”   

Text: Aino Kivelä