BYOD as educational method leading to improve employability of adults with intellectual disability

Description

Funding:

Erasmus+, KA204-343D43F2

Type of resource:

Manuals, multimedia, content creation

Target group:

Persons with intellectual disabilities, trainers, carers and parents, employers

Description:

The consortium of this Erasmus+ project consists of the following partners: Polish Association for Persons with Intellectual Disability (Poland), Vocational Training Center MARGARITA (Greece), Harran University (Turkey), Association for Activism, Education, Culture and Art Civil Center “AktivUm” (North Macedonia), Fundació Espurna (Spain). The partners attest that persons with intellectual disabilities can be employed in the community, along with persons without disabilities, and earn competitive wages. The project aims at making sure that these persons are supported to have the resources to seek, obtain, and be successful in this community employment, by being able e.g., to create a “catchy" CV or meet other job-related training and searching activities. Also, the project aimed at providing training material for best practices, for staff of employment and school-to-work transition programs. Training persons with intellectual disability in the use of mobile technologies and informing employers on the usefulness of these technologies, when hiring a person with intellectual disability, is also a scope of BYOD project.

Geographic coverage:

Poland, Greece, Turkey, North Macedonia, Spain

Pandemic relevance:

Yes

Level of education:

Post-secondary

Education setting:

Non-formal

Digital tools involved:

Publications in PDF (handbook for trainers, easy-to-read brochure for persons with intellectual disability), videos for persons with intellectual disability, webinars (for trainers and persons with intellectual disability), MOOCs for trainers

Timeframe:

Long-term

Sustainability:

Completed

Competences aimed:

  • Accessibility: Training of people with intellectual disabilities in the use of mobile technologies, training of trainers in why and how to use these technologies, informing employers about ways to take advantage of digital technologies when hiring a person with intellectual disabilities to make more inclusive workspaces and work activities. The participants were trained on the accessibility options of the selected mobile applications.
  • Digital skills: (brochure and videos with instructions for digital tools with easy-to-read and easy-to-understand content). The contents targeted BYOD has a series of applications that increase the autonomy of people with intellectual disabilities in everyday and working life. These applications target the following fields: 1. Transportation, 2. Communication, 3. Alternative communication, 4. Social media, 5. Time organization, 6. Tracking tools, 7. Teaching tools, 8. Job seeking, 9. Digital numeracy skills, 10. Finances, 11. EMAILS and productivity tools.
  • Social skills: Social digital skills were improved by learning basic rules on how to use social media, emails, and popular communication apps, such as WhatsApp and Viber
  • Other skills: Employment digital skills were improved by learning how to use Indeed Jobs and by being introduced in video CV development principles. The PwID learned how to participate in digital learning by knowing how to use applications like Kahoot! and Mentimeter.

Level of implementation:

  • Methodological
  • Learner’s
  • Social

Importance:

  • Successful contribution to the implementation of UNCRPD: Article 8 - Awareness-raising, Article 9 – Accessibility, Article 24 – Education, Article 27 - Work and employment
  • Co-production: Persons with intellectual disability and their trainers have been involved in the creation of the training resources, within an Erasmus+ consortium
  • Prospects: Educational material in 6 languages: English, Polish, Greek, Spanish, Macedonian, Turkish
  • Accessibility and inclusive education: Easy-to-read training material addressing the needs of persons with intellectual disabilities (PDF brochure with adequate text, videos with the participation of persons with intellectual disabilities and screen recording directions)

ETCF:

  • identify accessibility and AT use barriers, identify opportunities for AT use and accessibility
  • select, create & modify, share
  • information & media literacy, communication, content creation, safety (responsible use), problem solving

More information:

Full reference:

BYOD - Bring Your Own Device (2020). Publications. Retrieved May 25, 2022, from https://byod-project.eu/library/publications/