ICT To Meet The Additional Educational Needs Of Students In Irish Immersion And Gaeltacht Education
Keywords:
information and communication technology (ICT), additional educational needs (AEN), bilingual, immersion education, IrishAbstract
The benefits of using information and communication technology (ICT) for the inclusion of students with additional educational needs (AEN) have been widely publicised internationally. The use of ICT allows students to access curriculum content and demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways. The limited data available suggests that there are benefits in relation to the use of ICT for bilingual students. Immersion education schools and teachers often have difficulty accessing appropriate ICT resources in the language of instruction of the school. This is particularly the case if it is a minority language. Using mixed methods research, this study investigated the challenges that teachers face when accessing ICT through the medium of Irish and the resources that they require in this area. The findings suggest that there has been some improvement in the availability of ICT through the medium of Irish, however some teachers are still unaware of the products available. More developments need to be made in this area to enable teachers to overcome the challenges that they face.
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