DIGITAL COMPETENCE FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHING

The increasing digitization and globalization of the media, the broad diversification of media products, with the value-and ethical issues that it raises, proposes and confirms the reasons why media education is to be considered as an indispensable task for anyone involved in education. Thanks to specific educational interventions and appropriate evaluation tools for self-assessment, future educators should be helped to acquire the appropriate media skills necessary to develop the capacity to responsibly and autonomously choose proper media to design their media education courses. The media competence enhances teachers' ability to creatively modify learning spaces and to design a variety of stimulating activities in order to promote their pupils' independent and aware work. This paper describes the research for the development of three digital skills, in the Academic Year 2014/2015 with 91 in service teachers attending their special education teaching qualification course at the University of Palermo. Teachers have been involved for 75 hours in experiencing a training methodology for the promotion of media skills necessary to design paths of media education.