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What are your favourite inclusive education videos?

Did you know that if you type ‘inclusive education’ as a search in YouTube, it brings up 408,000 results?

Mind blowing! And incredibly confusing for anyone searching for video materials to use in their own inclusive education work. Of course you can use the search function to narrow down the number of results, but there is still an overwhelming range of options. Plus if you are based in Africa, Asia, Latin America or the Middle East many of the films may be irrelevant to the context of your work, as the majority of inclusive education videos found on YouTube were made for American or European audiences.

You could alternatively search through the websites of relevant NGOs and UN agencies, to see if they have made any useful videos. But that’s time consuming too.

So that is why EENET has decided to create a video catalogue. The catalogue will provide a categorised list of a relatively small number of recommended video materials on inclusive education. It will also provide more information about the content of each video, how it could be used and with whom, etc. The recommended videos will be made available through our website, and we hope also on DVD. Depending on the videos we shortlist, we may develop some user guides too.

So, if you have got some favourite inclusive education videos, then we’d like your help with this project! The details can be found below, and we’ll keep you updated with progress.

Thanks!

Ingrid Lewis

 What do we need from you?

We need your recommendations of videos about inclusive education!

  • You can recommend films that provide an overview of inclusive education, or that focus on specific issues (disability, gender equality, inclusion for other marginalised groups, etc).

— An initial search found many videos do not offer an outline/explanation of what inclusive education is (or what it means to the film maker/organisation).

  • You can recommend videos that were created for awareness-raising purposes, or as training materials, and so on.

— An initial search found that many videos talk about specific projects from an awareness-raising/fundraising perspective. Good quality video-based training materials seem less common, so recommendations for the latter would be particularly appreciated.

  • We need videos that feature different countries/regions. We mostly want videos that are not filmed in Europe, America, etc, but we’ll probably select a few that are.

— The initial search (excluding material from America and Europe) found a predominance of material focusing on Africa and some parts of Asia and an under representation of Latin America for example.

  • We are keen to feature videos that promote participation – for instance, they feature the voices of stakeholders, or were even made by stakeholders.
  • We want videos that are interesting and engaging (e.g. not a filmed lecture, unless it is an amazing lecture!).
  • Ideally we need films that are subtitled, signed and/or available in other languages, to increase their accessibility.

— An initial search has found that subtitled videos are quite common, but signing and other language availability is less common.

What to send us

  • If you don’t have much time, please just email us the website link(s) for your recommended video(s) – or you can share the links here in a blog comment. If the videos are not online, you can send a DVD, CD or VHS copy to the address below; or you could use a Dropbox folder if you want to send us large electronic files.
  • If you have a bit more time, please feel free to tell us why you are recommending the video(s), how you or your colleagues have used them, or how you would recommend that they be used, etc.

We will spend the next month or so viewing and assessing videos, and will then create a catalogue of the most relevant/useful. We may ask for some volunteers to review the draft catalogue in a few months, so if you are interested in doing that, let me know.

Deadline for sending recommendations: 7th April (although the catalogue will be updated periodically, so you can send us recommendations at any time after that too!)

Send DVDs etc to:

EENET CIC
37 Market Street
Hollingworth
Cheshire
SK14 8NE
UK

Please email links to online videos to:

ingridlewis@eenet.org.uk

 

My five favourite articles from Enabling Education Review: Let’s think ‘twintrackly’!

Blog by: I-Jung (Gracie) Lu, EENET volunteer and PhD student at University of Manchester

“Is it possible to include all students in school? I don’t know anything about disability (especially some types of disability). Won’t they receive better educational support in special schools?” Over the years, every time I have talked to mainstream teachers about the idea of inclusion, these sorts of questions have always been asked.

So then, is it possible? How do we develop education systems within a wide concept of ‘education for all’ and also consider and take good care of all needs of the individual? In other words, how do we take forward a twin-track approach? From EENET’s latest edition of ‘Enabling Education Review’ (Issue 2, December 2013), which focuses on Inclusive Education and Disability, I have selected five articles that might help answer this question.

Cover Enabling Education Review 1

Knowing Why and What’s Important

Teachers for All: Inclusive teaching for children with disabilities

To create quality education for all, you need to understand what inclusion means. It all starts with basic and fundamental changes within the education system. Five key strategies for developing teachers for inclusive education are outlined within this article. I found it really beneficial to ponder these strategies within my own context – education in Taiwan. Such reflection can give a fresh new perspective on your own practice of inclusion.

(See pp.16-17, Enabling Education Review, Issue 2, December 2013)

Create Your Own Inclusive Way

Researching my own solutions: interview with an inclusive teacher, Malaysia

This is one of my favourite articles. It looks at how one teacher started to reflect on her own approaches for developing effective inclusive practice within her context. Inclusive education is a process through which we keep improving and making adjustments according to students’ needs in order to provide the best quality learning support for all. This means teachers are also expected to improve and adjust their teaching bit by bit and develop their role as an educator. This article is a great example of how a teacher develops her own strategy throughout the process of supporting the student.

(See p.11, Enabling Education Review, Issue 2, December 2013)

Involve Different Voices

The role of people with disabilities in teacher training in Iraq

The author of this article says “The development of inclusive education should always be built on a foundation of participation by all key stakeholders – children, parents, teachers, decision-makers, donors, and of course representatives of marginalised groups.”

I found it amazing to see how adults with disability have partnered with teachers to build better skills in teaching. They have done this through sharing their own experiences of being disabled within education, and also by educating teachers about specific issues relevant to their lives, such as deaf adults teaching sign language to teachers.

(See p. 19, Enabling Education Review, Issue 2, December 2013)

Keep Connected

Developing resource centres for inclusive education in China

From this article I gained a new understanding about the role of the resource centre for the community. It is not only a place with resources and a place that provides support for children with special needs. A resource centre is more a place that keeps passing on the value of inclusion and developing sustainable systems that built up inclusive schools for all students. It can help move the fundamental structure of the education system forward toward inclusion.

(See pp. 20-21, Enabling Education Review, Issue 2, December 2013)

Look Back and Think

Assessing the inclusiveness of mainstream schools in Ghana

With all programmes and processes that aim to promote inclusive practice within educational or community settings, it is critical to look back on how well they have functioned in order to make sure the efforts are really helping children. This article explains about a monitoring tool that contains check lists to help schools self-assess their current practice of inclusive education, so they can reflect and improve.

(See pp. 26-27, Enabling Education Review, Issue 2, December 2013)

All five articles are available at https://www.eenet.org.uk/resources/eenet_newsletter/eer2/index.php

Why not visit the site and read them now! 🙂

I-Jung Lu

Welcome!

Hello. Thanks for finding EENET’s blog!

What will we blog about?

Our blogs will all be related to education, inclusion, diversity, equality, etc – but will cover a wide range of topics. We will share practical and personal experiences and contribute to theoretical debates.

Who are our bloggers?

There will be a variety of people blogging here – EENET’s directors, consultants, volunteers, members and other invited authors.

Where else can you find EENET?

There are various places where you can stay in touch with EENET, and access the large collection of inclusive education information that we have available:

Website

Enabling Education Review (our annual publication)

Facebook

Twitter