The WISE project and support for socialeducational inclusion

Abstract

Some learners are temporarily or permanently hindered from participating normally in school, university or professional education and training due to physical or health disabilities that are either congenital or have been acquired through traumas or degenerative diseases. So can network and mobile technologies offer new opportunities for proper social/educational inclusion in these cases? This is the issue that guided research and development in WISE (Wiring Individualised Special Education), a project funded by Italy’s Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) from 2009 to 2012. The main aim of WISE was to develop a support system for the education and special training of so-called homebound subjects, i.e. those who for physical or health reasons are confined to their homes or other closed environments such as hospitals or temporary homes. The essential components of the WISE support system are tools for sharing knowledge and good practices in Homebound Special Education (HBSE); the assisted planning of educational interventions directed at a special user base, and training of social/education workers. The project was coordinated by the Institute for Educational Technology (ITD) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and involved six Research Units (RU) from Italian university centres of excellence specialized in research on the educational use of network technologies. This paper presents the main features of the project, together with research results and prototype development.