Use of ICT and attention to diversity in times of COVID

Abstract

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has configured a school characterized by teaching-learning processes exclusively linked to the use of technological devices and virtual applications. With the aim to know the experience of the Andalusian special education teachers during the period of confinement with students with educational needs and the use of new technologies, we have developed a qualitative investigation. Based on individual interviews and focus groups, 37 special education teachers of the autonomous community of Andalusia have expressed the personal limitations, technological and training resources and the difficulties found to attend their students with special needs in the same way in which they had been doing it before confinement. This research highlights that educational centers have to improve and expand the training of students in the use of ICT devices and tools, especially in students with educational needs, and that we need to improve the accessibility of applications and technological devices with the purpose that they adapt to the characteristics of students with special educational needs.

Keywords:
COVID-19; Students with educational needs; Technology of the information and communication