The adequate training of teachers and educators in general is essential to improve the inclusion of students with SEN (Special Education Needs) (Durán & Giné, 2011). As these authors indicate, we must develop in these professionals a response to the educational diversity of pupils in both pre-service training and lifelong learning that should be capable of mobilising pedagogical aids from different sources: from the students themselves, collaboration and cooperation with other professionals, support from families and the community, etc. and also, with support from ICTs.

In this paper, we report on an experience with students of the Pedagogy degree at the University of Burgos (Spain) in which educational activities are developed for the building of inclusive settings by using ICTs. These proposals will serve, in turn, as the concretion of tools facilitating the rights to participation of school students in general and school students with SEN in particular.

In order to carry out this experience, fundamental account is taken into Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989). This article points out the children’s right to participate in the decision-making processes, to form an opinion and to be able to express it on all matters that relate to them, including judicial, administrative and educational issues, and in connection with their age and maturity.

Significant development has been experienced on the way towards high levels of inclusion throughout Europe, with student participation being one of its fundamental principles. However, although some research has been carried out in different contexts (Holtom, Lloyd-Jones, & Watkins, 2014; Drummond, 2016), the exercise the rights of these children and young people still requires to be investigated. In addition, tested experiences which facilitate the exercising of these rights should be also made available for those professionals of education interested in its implementation.

The activities were developed in the 2018-2019 academic year and will continue to be done during a further year. To carry it out, we applied a general methodology that adapts the traditional PBL (Project Based Learning) model (Ausín, Abella, Delgado, and Hortigüela, 2016). The experience resulted in the development of 4 projects, worked in teams of 4 or 5 students:

1. Building of two interactive Guides aimed at professionals in education in general (school managers, teachers, etc.) to support the promotion of the participation of: primary school children (Project 1) and secondary school youth (Project 2), in the decision-making process about their learnings, and
2. Building of two interactive Protocols for the implementation of a UDL classroom (Universal Design for Learning): for primary school teachers (Project 3) and secondary school teachers (Project 4).

Research questions

The proposal of these projects to the students of a Pedagogy degree raises two main questions:

What knowledge do the students of education degrees have in relation to the rights of children to their participation in making decisions about their learnings?

What scientific and technological skills will they have to translate this knowledge into facilitating practices of inclusion supported by ICT resources?

Finally, the objectives of this work are:

A) To identify the knowledge that these students have on the subject we are dealing with and

B) To explore the design of practices that facilitate children's decision making by using interactive tools.

Acknowledgements:

This work is supported by the Junta de Castilla y León, Project BU074G18 “Autonomy, Rights and Children with Special Needs: A New Paradigm?”, in the call for grants to support Recognized Research Groups of Public Universities in Castilla y León, 2018-2021.

The research design for the study responds to a concurrent mixed model (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011:78). Data is collected from two different approaches and then strategies are sought to merge the results from both strands. The process of collecting information for the assessment takes place at different times: • The observation, annotations and direct questions in the first meetings between teachers and students, within the first phase of the general methodology in which we adapted the traditional PBL model of Maastricht (Schmidt, 1983). This information is compared with the results from the evaluation rubric of the final project presented by each group and discussed in depth by the three teachers and other experts. • Ad-hoc surveys to students in order to collect feedback from the experience and also suggestions for the future. The used PBL model fosters development because in its first phase it works in the classroom defining the problem, preparing additional information and identifying the topics on which we will work (giving voice to children in general and children with SEN in particular) and how to implement an UDL classroom. A basic and flexible script is prepared to collect materials that will be incorporated later (audios and/or videos with which to work). As a transition to phase two, content development begins. In this phase, the multimedia resources are introduced (audios, images, conventional video, interactive video and an author's program for the merging of all the resources). The Mayer principles (Mayer, 2010), which are fundamental when working in digital multimedia environments, are applied here and ICTs are inclusively integrated. By involving the students, the revision of the basic principles for a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) (Alba-Pastor, 2012; CAST, 2011, 2013) is carried out in two lines of work: A) In an interactive domain, promoting universal accessibility (W3C, 2015). In this phase, the principles for easy reading are applied (García-Muñoz, 2014). B) In UDL domain, by implementing its guidelines (CAST, 2011, 2013) to serve as support in different inclusive settings. And the third phase of the PBL, where the result of the projects is presented, generally orally, in the classroom and with an open dialogue.

The research is in the process. We are currently ending the collection of projects and questionnaires in the first year. An initial evaluation of the resulting projects suggests positive results in terms of technical quality and compliance with the requirements indicated by the teachers. We encounter that students find it difficult to understand and translate in their proposals, in an effective way, practices and facilitating actions that help different education professionals in their journey to include students with SEN (Azorín & Ainscow, 2018) and to give them a voice in the decision-making process over their learnings. We hope that the collection of this information, opinions and suggestions from the participants can, on the one hand, offer tested proposals that encourage both the real implementation and at a local level, of possible facilitators and good practices in inclusive settings. On the other hand, we think that by promoting and normalizing this type of practices in our educational tertiary settings, they will turn into normalized attitudes and practices for graduates just leaving the college, in their future careers (Pavón, 2013).

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