When we create exercises for e-Learning platforms, the main focus is to present well-organized information for the students. However, children with special education needs require unique activities. They like computers and they usually enjoy visually rich and interactive activities because they allow them to focus on solving simple or complex exercises. Graphics, videos, sounds and toy-like hardware are their best friends when they need to improve their skills. It is necessary to combine multimedia resources with funny environments to allow them to enjoy their homework. They don't need boring exercises. Luckily, Moodle is an open e-Learning platform that is indeed useful to support the implementation of the most exciting activities for children with special education needs.
We can combine Moodle, Web 2.0 tools, commercial and free software, and general purpose hardware devices to develop rich and interactive activities with pictures for children with special education needs.
In this chapter, Alice, a seven year old girl, goes to school. We will learn how to create activities related to her journey. By reading it and following the exercises we shall:
Learn to create composite pictures
Create activities to match composite pictures with sentences
Search and organize 3D models to create a 3D scene
Work with colors to define skill levels
Create rich exercises to stimulate both the attention and the concentration
Learn to take advantage of a gamepad and a digital pen to create funny exercises
Add, run, and evaluate different kinds of rich and interactive activities
It was a very nice day. The sun was shining in the sky and the birds flew happily.
The school playground was full of children ready to begin their first day in school. Alice was among them.
The bell rang. Everyone had to go to class. All the children sat down and opened their schoolbags. Alice saw a lot of interesting things in the classroom. Shall we help her sort them out?