"I am Special, I am in Education" mobile application developed in an effort to support the distance education of special education students in the first days of Covid-19 pandemic was put into service on April 25, 2020. The OECD praised the application which has been actively used and appreciated by special education students, their parents and their teachers.

 

The report entitled, "Turkey: I am Special, I am in Education" issued by the OECD and prepared by Quentin Vidal introduced this application and showed it as an example to other countries.

 

Report stated that the application was downloaded for 350 thousand times until September 2020 and gave detailed information about the features of this application. You can read the whole report in  "https://oecdedutoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Turkey-I-am-special-I-am-in-education.pdf".

 

In his statement concerning the issue, Minister of National Education Ziya Selçuk made following comments: "Education of every child is important to us. Special children have different needs. We have developed "I am Special, I am in Education" application and put it into service at the end of April right after the beginning of pandemic in order to support these students, their parents and their teachers. This application has been actively used by them till now. We added new contents every month. We displayed our difference in provoding service in special education to other countries."

 

We are very happy to learn that OECD has dedicated one of its reports where it introduced best examples in countries during pandemic to this application and praised it. I would like to thank Deputy Minister of National Educaiton Mahmut Özer who coordinated this process. I also would like to thank Director General for Special Education and Counseling Services Nezir Gül and his colleagues as well as the Head of Information Technologies Özgür Türk and his colleagues who completed the software." 

 

Students with hearing and visual disability, mild, moderate or serious mental incompetence who continue their education in special education schools and inclusive education and their parents can use all special education contexts and chapters in the "I am special, I am in Education" application without paying any fee.

 

Mobile application includes cognitive, reading, math, life sciences, daily life, communication skills and social skills training videos, all special education books and sources, activity pages and schedule, informative videos for parents and other interactive applications.

 

It is possible to access to variety of contents such as activity examples, training videos, school books, academic publications and fun educational games that will support the academic, social and emotional development of special talented students.

 

 There are 9 titles in the application namely, "Hello", "Activities", "Special Education", "Special Talent", "Counseling", "Time to Read" "Your comments", "Communication" and "Settings".

 

It is possible to access to "I am special, I am in Education" mobile application with Android and IOS operating systems via Google Play Store and App Store.

 

For the full text of the report click.