Sanja Draksler, Osnovna šola Vransko, Tabor
Students with special needs in primary school represent a vulnerable minority and often need a person who is supports and helps them on the way of acquiring knowledge and organizing curricular and extracurricular activities. In addition to the adjustment in acquiring various educational knowledge, these students often need the guidance in the allocation and planning of after-school activities in the afternoon in which they have to incorporate and plan the school obligations. The Google Calendar app enables active organization of learning, homework, breaks, extra-curricular activities, free time… At the beginning of school year, students received the presentation of the program and of its usage, in additional professional assistance lessons. The students showed extraordinary interest in the application, because it is topical, children attractive, easy to use and at the same time they have learned to control and organize their afternoon time and also learned about the targeted use of their computers, tablets and mobile phones. They have also researched by themselves and discovered new applications that might also be helpful. At the same time they were developing their ICT skills, use of the Internet and various applications. Children have formed a calendar of their afternoon events already in the morning. However, since some feel that they are not fully independent at their afternoon obligations and need control during the activities, we have taken advantage of the upgrade and used the possibility to share calendar with another person. At that point, the students could independently define the permissions settings (either the person can only see a calendar or change it) and also mark the events that the child does not want to display publicly, with the option “just me”. They set the reminder and marked the events in different colours for easier recognition of activities. The organization of learning and learning itself has been handed in the students’ hands. Step by step the progress in the field of responsibility and independence has been detected. Eventually, they have discovered that their organization and active work bring success, which has also been reflected in the rise of their self-esteem and in the long term also in higher grades.
