Supporting Learners with Special Needs in Open, Distance, and Digital Education

Abstract

Open, distance, and digital education (ODDE) is meant to provide unique educational opportunities for everyone, including learners with special needs. While promising flexible and accessible learning experiences for learners with special needs, ODDE may simultaneously result in the creation of certain barriers. Supporting learners with special needs in ODDE environments, therefore, becomes a critical task for all educational institutions. This chapter focuses on the challenges that learners with special needs encounter during their learning process in ODDE, as well as those mechanisms that can be used to support them in order to overcome these challenges, such as means of increasing accessibility, recognizing Universal Design for Learning principles, using assistive technologies, providing accommodations, and adaptations in terms of pedagogical, managerial, social, and technical support. The chapter suggests that ODDE is inclusive in nature and that it should therefore further focus on empathy and care-oriented pedagogies. ODDE, inspired by openness philosophy, envisions equity, equality, and justice for every learner, including learners with special needs.