Funded by the Erasmus+
Programme of the
European Union
We would like to take this opportunity to present to you the fourth newsletter of the WELCOME project, which is coordinated by the Nakladatelství Dr. Josef Raabe s.r.o. publishing house. It is an international European Erasmus+ project which falls under Key Action 2 (KA2), with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria as participating countries. Our partners include Charles University in Prague, Research Institute for Child Psychology and Patho-psychology in Bratislava, the Institute for Psychological Health and Development in Sofia, the online agency M7 in Bratislava and kindergartens and primary schools in the participating countries, which cooperate on the development and testing of the main project outputs. These are Kindergarten Mirotice, Kindergarten and Primary School Zubrohlava and Kindergarten Prikazka bez krai in Sofia.
The main objective of the WELCOME project is to support inclusion in kindergartens and to offer functional tools for working with children with special needs in education (SNE) whose development is influenced by their disability of disadvantage. We provide teachers with theoretical background and practical suggestions for the systematic support of children with SNE within group and individual work. The main outputs of our project are:
After thorough testing of the publication carried out at the partner kindergartens and after the approval of changes at the project meeting in Sofia, the editors for the Methodology for Working with Children with SNE in Kindergarten incorporated all the comments they had received. The publication was then sent to an external evaluator, who went through and reviewed the publication in close detail. Based on their suggestions, the Methodology then received its final form. That is will be an extremely helpful companion for all kindergarten teachers is confirmed in the review evaluation itself:
The Methodology is an excellent specialized contribution to the issue of working with children with special needs in education. Its focus and scope are very current, desirable and necessary. It brings – in an easy-to-follow and comprehensive form – information and suggestions for working with children with SNE. The manner in which the publication is structured, knowledgeable and unique in that it integrates theory with actual pedagogical experience of the authors. It can be very helpful mainly for kindergarten teachers, but also for other specialists and parents.
We are currently working hard on the production stages leading up to the publishing of the publication. The authors from the project team from Slovakia and Bulgaria are currently carrying out the specialized review of the translations into Slovak and Bulgarian, and the editors are preparing the manuscripts for type-setting. The Czech version of the methodology has already been type-set and it was given an attractive and modern graphic layout. Our proofreaders are now working hard to polish the final product. The same procedure will be applied to the other language versions of the publication. We are planning to print the Czech, Slovak and Bulgarian version this autumn.
Already at the project meeting in Sofia in Spring 2018, the idea was brought up that the WELCOME application should have a simple and easy-to-remember name. Our partners finally came up with the name IDEA (Interactive Digital Education Assistant), which best corresponds to our idea of the application as an assistant to the kindergarten teacher.
Work on the design of the application is currently in full swing. The application has been programmed, it went through the internal evaluation at our partner organizations. Our partner agency M7 is currently focused on programming the individual activities. Working in parallel, our editors supplement the set of activities for the application to ensure that all areas of the child’s development are covered, including all sub-areas. Each child will then have the opportunity to develop the sub-area in which s/he has deficiencies.
Indeed, the application will function as an assistant of sorts: thanks to the pedagogic screening in the application, the teacher will evaluate the current state of the child in the individual areas of development, and the application will then use the results of this screening to suggest selected activities. At the same time, the teacher will find in the application theoretical background for the area of children with SEN in kindergarten, including an overview of development possibilities for the given area. We believe that the application will become a true assistant to every kindergarten teacher.
All our partner kindergartens are currently preparing workshops during which teachers with groups of children (including children with SNE) will learn how to include work with the application into their ordinary day at the kindergarten.
Our editorial team is working on script adjustments for the individual topical blocks implemented in the workshop to ensure that they meet the requirements of individualization in education. After programming, the teachers in our partner kindergartens, as well as in other kindergartens involved with the project will be introduced to the activities.
In the upcoming months, there will be mainly workshops at kindergartens. The programming of activities within the IDEA application will continue, and the application will be translated to other languages. The Methodology will be printed soon and its distribution to kindergartens will start.
We are going to organize our last project meeting as well, it is scheduled to take place in Prague in early December. We will also focus on further promotion of the project – the project and its outputs will be presented at a number of conferences and specialized meetings. The promotion of the WELCOME project will climax with the presentation of the project outputs at the international dissemination conference organized by Nakladatelství Dr. Josef Raabe in Prague on 24th April 2019.
The WELCOME project is presented through the following channels:
Follow our outputs, support our authors and give us feedback on how successful we are in reaching our objectives!
We wish you all a pleasant autumn!!
© 2016 Nakladatelství Dr. Josef Raabe, s.r.o.
