Sperimentazione e valutazione dei prototipi di WISE: metodologia, strumenti e sintesi

[Autom. eng. transl.] Problems due to physical or health disabilities, congenital or acquired as a result of trauma or degenerative diseases, often temporarily or permanently prevent normal participation in school, university and professional education. In these cases, can network and mobile technologies offer new opportunities for real socio-educational inclusion? This is the key issue that from 2009 to 2012 led the research and development of the project called WISE (Wiring Individualized Special Education), funded by the Ministry of Education, University and Research with investment funds for basic research ( FIRB). The aim of the project was the development of a support system for the education and special training of the so-called homebound, ie those who for physical and health reasons are confined to their home or other environment (hospital, temporary domicile). Essential parts of the WISE support system are the tools for sharing knowledge and good practices on homebound special education, the assisted planning of educational interventions aimed at special users, the training of socio-educational operators. Evaluating the experiments is a fundamental step to give greater meaning and value to what has been achieved within the WISE project. Therefore, a common experimentation methodology was defined on the basis of a unitary evaluation model, with the aim of holding together specific experiments conducted on prototypes and different environments functional to information, training and support for those who find themselves to interact with the homebound reality. To this end, some guidelines have been provided for the definition of specific testing protocols. The protocol saw the use of different elements to which we tried to give unity and a framework of shared meaning: evaluation tools, methods of conduct, data analysis, type of target, timing. The data collected from the experiments proved useful and interesting for some final considerations on the validity of the contents and the usability of the prototypes.