Early childhood education and care (ECEC) with E-learning support: Working in the field of ECEC with children with disabilities, the organizations involved in the project have faced serious problems in the region caused by low and uneven accessibility of early intervention services and the lack of social inclusion. The primary, innovative intellectual output of the present international cooperation is a flexible, online e-learning platform and a modular system of 5 courses in fields related to early childhood intervention. The courses cover basic fields of development such as motor development, feeding, and different aspects of communication, an area of primary importance in inclusion. Certain courses aim at typically developing children as well, who will meet their peers with special needs as models to follow in the video presentations, promoting the formation of cooperative attitudes. Teachers will acquire new methods and tools for a higher quality early intervention, while parents will be empowered to support the development of their children more independently and be able to cooperate more competently in early intervention. After closing the project, the modular system will be expandable: part of the intellectual output is a protocol for including further modules. Rejtett Kincsek Down Egyesület, Hungary will provide the project coordinator, and the head of the professional work will be their team in Budapest. The professional teams of Caritas, Romania and Centrum Liberta, Slovakia will be cooperating partners. Target groups: 0-12 years old children with special needs, professionals and parents cooperating in their early intervention and care, and 0-6 years old, typically developing children with their families. Target groups are to be addressed by the participating organizations. 20 Hungarian speaking families will be involved in the testing of the first module. Further modules will be used by at least 75 children and their families. After finishing the project, the number of users is expected to multiply. Methods: At the beginning of the project, the professional team (occupational and physical therapists, special education teachers, cognitive psychologist, teacher) and IT developers will compile the framework of the e-learning platform, in multiple sessions. IT developers develop the platform, and the first few lessons of the test module will be prepared. Testing will involve a questionnaire to check user satisfaction and the adaptability of the system in different learning environments. Results will be incorporated in the necessary developments and modifications. The 5 modules will be prepared simultaneously by the professional teams. The modules will be uploaded and potential users will be recruited. 9 partner meetings will be held to specify tasks and discuss emerging questions. At the end of the project, 3 conferences will be held in the 3 participating countries to present the e-learning platform and its innovative potential to professionals, decision-makers, parents and the media. Sustaining and updating of the system, adding new modules and promoting further usage of online tools in ECEC requires the involvement of additional resources. To reach this end, partner organizations continue both their joint and independent fundraising practices. The intensive professional collaboration of participating organizations in the project will most probably result in a significantly higher quality of communication and cooperation, it will inspire ideas at transnational and global scales, and lead to the implementation of similar projects in the future. At a regional level, we expect a rise in the quality of early intervention services in the countries involved: children will be able to access methods not included in the standard practice of ECEC in the region, and will have a better chance to get included in their communities. Different modules are expected to improve different fields of development, but teachers and parents will generally be more competent in caring for children with special needs, which will result in higher quality early intervention services. The competences of the participating organizations serving children with special needs will improve, and they will gain greater visibility. The e-learning platform, which is to reduce inequality caused by geographical disadvantages and the lack of specialists, to support the work and vocational development of professionals in early intervention, and to provide families with tools and opportunities for independence, is definitely a gap filler in the region, but with its high level of flexibility and focus on ECEC makes it an innovation at an international level as well. Incorporating digital tools in ECEC will not only improve accessibility and quality of early intervention services in the region but will also provide a unique opportunity for the professional development of the staff of the 3 organizations involved.
In order to make early development accessible to even more atypically developing or disabled children, experts from three countries work together. The Rejtett Kincsek Down Association from Nyíregyháza, Caritas Organization of the Diocese Satu Mare and Centrum Liberta from Košice undertook to develop an e-learning program within the framework of the Erasmus + program “Early childhood education and care (ECEC) with E-learning support” implemented between November 2018 and November 2020. The online platform is available in Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak and English. (www.edumodul.hu / www.edumodul.com / www.edumodul.ro / www.edumodul.sk ) The content of the 6 intellectual products developed during the project, focused on early childhood education, mainly on the intervention of children with special needs. In the partner countries the system faces big gapes like families have to travel hours in order to receive early intervention or this kind of service is not available. According to Hungarian data - where the situation is the best in the region - not even one-fifth of children in need of care receive early intervention. The e-learning interface available in four languages is actually a method that supports the work of educators. A kind of extended “arm” that helps to make interventions even more efficient. The developed modules can be accessed grouped around six development areas, which are autonomy, communication, socialization, thinking, fine and gross motor skills. The intellectual products created during the implementation of the project are the following: • E-learning module system to support the early development of children with different educational needs (HU, SK, RO, ENG) • E-learning module: 12 weeks word recognition training for children with learning difficulties (HU) • E-learning module: social skills development in children with autism (HU) • Social skills - rhythm module (Who plays this?) (HU) • Eating problems in infancy and early childhood (RO) • Fine motor skills development curriculum for children with reduced mobility (SK) Prior to its development, the E-learning framework was reviewed by 3-3-3 special education professionals from the three partner countries for quality assurance purposes. The 12 weeks word recognition training module for children with learning difficulties (HU) was tested in early 2020, with 33 special education teachers out of a total of 95 users registered and 59 parents from the three partner countries, who took part in the testing. Focus group parental testing was conducted online due to the COVID prevention measures taken in the spring of 2020, with a total of 14 parents able to participate. Based on their answers and ideas, the e-learning interface was further developed. After the further development and the uploading of the other 4 modules within the framework of the project, the completed e-learning interface was tested. A total of 349 users have been registered on the site so far from which more than forty percent are educators and special teachers. The summary of the survey-answers shows that most of the visited module was word recognition one (26 assignments), followed by “Who plays this?”, module with lessons containing rhymes and songs (26 assignments) and the “Social skills development in children with autism” module which was completed by 21 people. The Romanian-language nutrition curriculum was marked as completed by three, and the Slovak-language fine motor skills module by seven (but the surface shows that 21 people completed the Romanian language module in Romania and 15 people completed the Slovak language module in Slovakia.). More than eighty percent of the users indicate that they are highly satisfied about the platform. The weekly satisfaction scale shows that no one was totally dissatisfied, the rate of very dissatisfied people is negligible (2.3 percent) and more than 70 percent of those who completed the modules recommend the e-learning platform to others potential users. The "PROTOCOL or Practical guide for creating an online support platform and developing specialized content" developed during the implementation of the project is available in Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian and English on the Edumodul interface. In November the three partner organizations held their online conference on the ZOOM interface. During the conference, we focused to provide a comprehensive insight to the structure and use of the Edumodul e-learning platform developed by the Erasmus + project for those specialists who are working in the fields of education, health and social care with typical children and those who are disabled. In total, more than 300 people attended the conferences. Later, possibly in the framework of a new project, we plan to make accessible all modules in several languages, to adapt and develop them to local conditions, and to create new modules and continuously update them (English, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak).