ICT program for otherly abled

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : In a bid to turn the concept of ‘Digital Inclusion’ programme a reality, by empowering all students in the State in using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools, the IT@School Project has planned to introduce specific programs for differentially-abled students. As the first step, the training module for teachers has been developed using the free software application Gcompris.  The Project has already imparted ICT training to all visually challenged teachers in the state using the free software ORCA and the achievement had fetched special appreciation from Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt of India. IT@School Project has customized the free software-based application GCompris exclusively for the program for differentially abled students, by which a total of 119 activities have been incorporated under eight sections. Using the software, it is possible to provide specific topics relating to physical and psychological conditions of individual students. The module comprises various educational activities enabling the student to learn by seeing, hearing, touching and reading. Students with differential capabilities would be able to learn ICT through this software irrespective of their physical limitations, a press statement here said.  “Through this training using the customized software, differential capabilities found in students such as lack of memory, attention loss, lack of hand-eye coordination etc could be overcome significantly, enabling those students to learn and develop much better. The software GCompris has been packed with activities infusing reading materials, numericals, colours etc along with different games to help students who are hearing impaired, visually challenged, orthopaedically handicapped etc”, said K Anvar Sadath, Executive Director, IT@School Project, in a press release. The learning process has been designed in such a way as to facilitate psychological growth for students playing different games. The narrations and letters have been made available in Malayalam. The module, which encourages reading, calculations, puzzles, creation of maps etc, would be made use of in training the teachers from schools with the differentially abled students. The Project would also extend these resources to MHRD so that similar students of other States also can benefit. The innovative module of this training programme has been developed by the Malappuram team of IT@School.