Digital technologies have an amazing potential in education and huge efforts and interest are being put into empowering teachers for better learning outcomes. The European Commission is accordingly strongly supporting, through policies and funding, digital learning in the European Education System. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically exemplified the necessity of broadly accessible online educational resources. Unfortunately, students with disabilities are often left apart from this mainstream of research and innovation in Educational Technologies because the platforms and tools are not designed taking this group of users into account. As a result, they suffer from a double disadvantage: not only cannot they benefit from the new teaching methodologies, but they cannot even access more traditional textbook-style digital learning material to support their self-studying. The INDIe4All project stands up for a more inclusive e-learning, by boosting the creation of online open educational resources accessible for students with disabilities, with an emphasis on visually impaired. By developing further the results of the Erasmus Plus KA201 project INDIe, 2018-1-ES01-KA201-050924, http://indieproject.eu, an authoring tool was developed which implements a layer of generation of accessible content. It therefore allows teachers and educators to easily produce rich online learning units which are accessible to students with visual impairment and possibly additional disabilities. The OERs that are created with the INDIe4All authoring tool are compliant with the European standard for digital accessibility, EN 301 549 v3.2.1, aligned with the international WCAG 2.1 guidelines. The units were successfully tested by blind students and teachers as well as by experts in assistive technology for the blind. A unit containing all the possible widgets received the AA level with a maximum score (10) of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. Moreover, a large number of accessible learning units on a range of topics and educational levels were created and published to the INDIeOpen repository of Open Educational Resources https://indieopen.upct.es. These are open and free to use, share and modify by any person interested. An online course on inclusive education for the professional development of teachers, staff or any person interested in the education of students with visual impairement, is available in Greek, Spanish and English at http://indieproject.eu/#/resources. Anyone can try the authoring tool and create their own OERs at https://indie4allsquare.upct.es/ To achieve these results, a consortium was built in a complementary perspective with partners with different profiles: a higher education institution with a strong technological know-how; organisations - a charity and specialised schools - with expertise and decades of experience in the education of students with visual impairment and additional disabilities; mainstream high schools with visually impaired students; a regional authority for education which is in charge of attending students with educational needs in the Region of Murcia, and finally, a Greek association of teachers who share the passion to promote STEM subjects in education. The INDIeOpen platform was one of the 21 finalists in the 2021 edition of the IMS Global Learning Impact Awards (http://content.imsglobal.org/learning-impact-report-2021/learning-impact-report-2021/), where only three European projects were finalists of that edition. It was also a finalist of the 2021 SIMO education fair, the greatest Edtech Spanish fair. It has moreover been selected as finalist in the 2023 edition of the the Discapnet Awards 2023. The Discapnet Awards aim to recognize the best initiatives and actions in the field of technologies applied to improving the quality of life for people with disabilities, as well as honoring companies, entities, or organizations that have demonstrated continuous efforts in the field of technological accessibility. The INDIe4All authoring tool has been adopted by several universities and Erasmus+ projects, see http://indieproject.eu/ - /adopters
Firstly, the project aimed to significantly increase the availability of accessible OERs for students with disabilities, with a particular focus on those with visual impairments. To achieve this, we empower teachers and individuals with an authoring tool that enables them to effortlessly create high-quality digital educational content that is accessible to visually impaired students and adaptable to various special educational needs. Additionally, the INDIe Erasmus + project 2018-1-ES01-KA201-050924 produced a range of Open Educational Resources (OERs). By leveraging the remixing capabilities, these existing OERs can be enhanced to be more accessible, thanks to the improvements of the authoring tool that this project has committed to. This will result in a wider availability of accessible OERs. It's worth noting that the authoring tool is open source and free to use. Moreover, efforts were to be dedicated towards developing resources on inclusive education to support the continuous professional growth of teachers and staff, creating a comprehensive course on inclusive education for visually impaired students, available as OERs. Additionally, all partners involved in the project shall receive training on this important topic.
Inclusive education is globally recognized as the primary strategy to ensure high-quality education for all, particularly for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. Digital education and educational technologies play a crucial role in addressing the challenge of inclusion and success for all. However, there is a significant issue that needs to be addressed - many existing platforms and content are not accessible or inclusive for students with disabilities. This poses a risk, as these students may be left apart from the main stream of innovation spurred by the digital transformation of education. On the one hand, there is a pressing need for the availability of accessible and open educational resources to enable teachers to embrace an inclusive educational approach in their classrooms. Additionally, such resources provide students with disabilities with a diverse range of materials that can support their learning. Furthermore, it is crucial to provide continuous support and professional development for teachers and staff to promote inclusive education. This includes raising their awareness and equipping them with the necessary skills and knowledge, resulting in classrooms and schools that become increasingly inclusive.