DDMATH European Project
The study of mathematics for the blind has always been considered a difficult problem and has heavily influenced good performance, motivation to study, and in definitive access to scientific studies by entire generations of visually impaired people. This issue is combined with the problems of Integrated Digital Education which requires teachers (curricular and support, in common schools and special institutes) to
maintain effective remote interaction with the disabled pupil by developing new educational solutions and personalized digital materials to be used with specific methods of distance learning.
The use of computers is now widespread among blind students, who increasingly appreciate its advantages also for the study of mathematics, thanks to special software such as the editor
mathematician “Lambda”, developed by the members of the PACCINI association and a. of Toulouse, which allows blind people to study mathematics independently. In addition to it there are other software developed in the USA such as TRIANGLE and Duxbury, or the LaTeX language, used in many European countries for the preparation of scientific texts. However, if some valid solutions have been identified as regards the codes and IT tools for “doing mathematics”, the same cannot be said for the related aspects
teaching methodologies, the availability of proposals and work strategies on the various topics of accessible digital mathematics, guides for teachers and the production and supply of mathematics texts in digital Braille format. In other words, it is necessary to combine the computer aids with valid and tested didactic proposals, which can help teachers to promote a real inclusion of the blind child in school in order to “guarantee everyone equal access to all educational activities” The DDMATH project aims to create these resources, developing a new educational model for DDI based on information technologies and in the last part of the project experience it by involving teachers, students and families, through a pilot phase, in a real context in the classroom. DDMATH will have a positive impact both for students, in terms of easier engagement and scholastic success, and for the new generations of teachers who will be able to acquire new skills in the area of mathematics accessible through the experimentation of new teaching models of Braille, based on the use of new technologies and through a collaborative process between schools at European level. As a secondary objective, the project proposes to start an experimentation for the use of Lambda for users with other disabilities. In the period of closure of schools in Italy between April and May 2020, several suggestions and indications of Lambda experiments were received by about ten teachers, in search of useful solutions for mathematics
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