USE OF THE EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE PLAY AND LEARN WITH A MOUSE IN MATHEMATICS TEACHING OF STUDENTS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISORDER IN BULGARIA Milen Zamfirov Abstract: This article presents a new software dedicated to mathematics teaching of students with special needs. The application works with Adobe Flash, which proved its irreplaceable advantages in building impressive interactive, multimedia, web and Stand Alone based products. The software is divided into eight teaching modules aimed at developing basic mathematical skills addition, subtraction, comparing of numbers from 0 to 10, introduction to basic geometrical figures and colours. Key words: mathematics, software, intellectual disorder ИЗПОЛЗВАНЕ НА ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЕН СОФТУЕР ИГРАЙ И УЧИ С МИШКА ЗА ОБУЧЕНИЕ НА ДЕЦА С ИНТЕЛЕКТУАЛНА НЕДОСТАТЪЧНОСТ ПО МАТЕМАТИКА В БЪЛГАРИЯ Милен Замфиров Анотация: Статията представя нов софтуер, свързан с обучението по математика на ученици с интелектуална недостатъчност. Приложението е разработено със средствата на Adobe Flash, доказалa незаменимите си предимства при изграждането на впечатляващи интерактивни, мултимедийни web или Stand Alone базирани продукти. Програмата е разделена на осем обучителни модула, насочени към запознаване и усвояване на базови математични знания събиране и изваждане на числата до 10, начални геометрични знания, сравняване на числа. Ключови думи: математика, софтуер, интелектуална недостатъчност Introduction Teaching of mathematics to first grade students with mental retardation is not an easy problem and it cannot be solved just by applying traditional methods and approaches used in special schools as well as in the schools of general education in which mentally impaired students are being integrated. In Bulgaria the educational system for teaching students with mental retardation comprises several types of schools: Specialized schools (5 in total), where a priority is given to the education of students with hearing and sight disorders (total of 870 students), but there are also students with mixed disorders including intellectual disorders (Saeva 2010:215). Special schools (59 in total). In accordance with their purpose and essence, special schools provide education to the children with a lighter level of intellectual disorder. As half of them are boarding schools, they resemble the boarding houses for children without parents in many ways. In the special schools of Bulgaria 5788 children are being educated, 90% of which are diagnosed with light intellectual disorder and until September 2002 only they and some of
the children with moderate intellectual disorder were treated by the legislator as fit to be educated. Boarding houses for children and young people with intellectual disorder (20 in total). In these houses are being accommodated the children with heavy intellectual disorders. The children there (over 1400) do not receive education. Schools of general education. During the years preceding the admission of Bulgaria to the EU (2007), different legislative initiatives were taken which allowed an easier integration of students with intellectual disorders into the schools of general education. Unfortunately, there is no precise record of the number of students with intellectual disorders integrated into the schools of general education. Regardless of the wide range of educational services provided to the people with intellectual disorders, the problems remain substantial. One of them is related to the requirement adopted in Bulgaria in 2004 that the syllabus for the special schools and the schools of general education must be the same. Thus a new problem emerged before the teachers engaged with the education of these students because of the intensified search for innovative and nontraditional methods and tools, which could facilitate and improve the educational process, and mathematics education for the first grade in particular. Information technologies provide such a possibility. In recent years, this subject was introduced into our educational system but was accompanied by a number of problems low or no qualification of the teachers, lack or chaos in the publishing of specialized and systematical books and tools, insufficient development of suitable, adapted, computer programmes, etc. At the same time, the convergence between the two subjects mathematics and information technologies even purely historically, is extremely strong. This in itself is a premise for the realization of successful software products intended for every field of education and in particular for the teaching of mathematics to students with intellectual disorders. Analysis of the Syllabus and the Educational Requirements in Mathematics and Information Technologies in Bulgaria Mathematics education in the first grade plays a fundamental role in the full development of the student with intellectual disorder. It promotes the development of watchfulness, concentration, cognitive activity, mental operations like analysis, synthesis, abstraction, concretization, generalization, juxtaposition. Furthermore, it stimulates the imagination and develops creative abilities of children with intellectual disorder. The goals and expected results in mathematics education for the first grade are comprised into four categories Numbers, Plane figures, Measuring and Modelling. The goals are systematized as follows (Manova & Rangelova 2006:5): - Learning the numbers from 0 to 20; - Learning addition and subtraction of the numbers from 0 to 20; - Identification of geometric figures: square, circle, triangle, rectangle, intercept; - Establishment of primary drawing skills; - Establishment of primary measuring skills; - Establishment of real life situations description skills using a mathematical model (mathematical text tasks with one calculation); - Establishment of number modeling skills of situations, described with the ratios more and less ; - Creation of interest and motivation for learning mathematics. Expected results are (by subjects): 2
Subject 1. Numbers from 0 to 10 (addition and subtraction of numbers from 0 to 10). Subject 2. Numbers from 11 to 20. Subject 3. Addition and subtraction of numbers to 20. The various mathematics school appliances and textbooks used at the Bulgarian schools (Rusev et al. 1990a:12), as well as at the foreign ones (Rucker et al. 1985:28), indicate that these goals and expected results are almost identical and differ slightly. At the same time, however, in Bulgaria the mechanical transfer of the schools of general education syllabi to the special and specialized schools does not lead to the expected results. The goals are not always fully achieved due to the different educational difficulties of the students from the special and specialized schools, and mainly for the lack of adequate school appliances. At the specialized schools the use of very old textbooks is a common practice and most of them are in compliance with the abilities of the students with intellectual disorder. For example, the textbook (Rusev et al. 1990b:11) and the students book (Rusev et al. 1990c:17) for the special schools first graders ends with addition and subtraction of numbers to 10 without passing 10. The first grade textbooks for the schools of general education (which should also be used by the children with intellectual disorder at the special schools) end with addition and subtraction of numbers to 20 with passing 10 (Manova & Rangelova 2004:8). That way, the old mathematics textbook material for the special schools (Rusev et al. 1990a:29) complies with the state educational requirements to Subject 1. Numbers from 0 to 10 (addition and subtraction of numbers from 0 to 10). Certainly, the problem is not only the lack of assessment of the consequences of such syllabus transfers. The main problem is the lack of school appliances to effectively facilitate the mathematics education process for the children with intellectual disorder. So, no matter what legislative changes are adopted, the result would be just another institutional formality, unless the focus is put on the creation of school appliances. One promising possibility aiming at overcoming, at least partially, the above mentioned problems is the Play and learn with a mouse programme, developed by the author and designed for the first grade mathematics education of students with intellectual disorder. Play and Learn with a Mouse Programme Description The programme is developed using the tools of Adobe Flash, which has demonstrated its unique advantages in the design of impressing interactive, multimedia web or Stand Alone based products. Besides, Flash provides the possibilities of the object oriented language Action Script 2 for the programme realization of the product. It is an ECMAScript based programme code used for creation of Adobe Flash films and applications (Franklin & Makar 2004:121). It has long been known for the advantages in developing game applications and appears to be extremely suitable for achieving the goals. The last version of the language Action Script is 3. It offers a number of innovations in the field of multimedia applications development for flow audio or video playback, online communications like chat programmes, the use of a user defined class objects is involved to a large degree, as well as clearing of various anachronism in the syntax, remaining from older versions of the language (Franklin & Makar 2004:213). All those language new resources, however, do not contribute fundamentally to the programme development of the game. For that reason the language was not workable. The resources of MDM Zinc software, which expands Flash functions for the development of Desktop applications, are used for the product final design. It is realized by secondary compilation and building in additional class objects, many of which can correspond directly to the user operation system. Another new remarkable resource of Zinc is the 3
compilation of executable files for Linux и MacOS, and that kind of a platform independence is any programme s unquestionable advantage. Programme Modules Description Each one of the games is an original module, presented by an external swf asset. One of the structure advantages is the easy process, editing and addition of new tasks to the application. Screenshot 1. General view Module 1. Colour the girl The first module is a virtual colour booklet. This task does not require an exact problem solving, but it is rather a drawing interface task with the main purpose of stimulating the student s imagination. Well known is the fact that colour booklets are extremely liked and popular among young children. Unlike their paper version, this module has two new advantages it can be used many times and can change one colour for another when a detail is already done. Screenshot 2. Colour the girl Module 4
Module 2. Colour the apples There is a requirement here for the selection of a particular colour, unlike the first module where students can choose any colour. The requirement is Colour the big apple in brown and the small apple in green. Screenshot 3. Colour the apples Module The colours required for the task are generated randomly (from the basic colours) each time. That means every time the programme is started the requirements to colour the apples would be different. The method of the random requirements selection is applied here for the first time and it is used for the construction of almost every module in the game, and will be specified as the random method for convenience and brevity hereafter. Uniqueness of each user session with the application is achieved by it. As regards to the programme, it is realized through complex functional constructions, using the random method of the mathematical processing class built in Flash. Module 3. Hit the balloons This module emphasizes the fine motility work with the mouse and the attention counting the hit balloons. The instruction is: Hit the balloons! Count how many balloons you have hit and type their number. The student must hit the balloons and count the number of the hit ones at the same time. At the end of the module the student must write the number of the hit balloons. In case of three wrong answers, a suggestion with the right number appears. After it is written, the student can move to the next module. The random method is not applied to this module. 5
Screenshot 4. Hit the balloons Module Module 4. Hit the figures Instruction is: Hit the triangles! Count and type how many triangles you have it. Screenshot 5. Hit the figures Module The random method is applied again here which means the selection of the target figure is random when the programme starts it will be a square, the next time a circle, then a triangle and so on. The student must hit the right figure among many different ones, i.e. the student has to focus. That way during the game the basic geometrical figures are introduced, this exercise complements the previous one (Module 3. Hit the balloons), and as a result attention allocation increases. 6
Module 5. Hit the right figures This module complements the previous one. Instruction is: Hit the yellow squares! Count and type how many yellow squares you have hit. The figure and its colour are selected randomly. Screenshot 6. Hit the right figures Module Module 6. Solve the puzzle This is an original logical puzzle. The requirement is: Mark the equal numbers. The right marking of two identical numbers makes them disappear and gradually reveals an animated picture of a stylized animal beneath them as the solving progresses. Screenshot 7. Solve the puzzle Module 7
These pictures are generated randomly with each session and after restarting. The numbers are also arranged in a different way each time. In case of a mistake i.e. the marking of different numbers the puzzle restarts and rearranges. Module 7. Let s add In this module the numbers are random. The instruction is: Add the numbers and type the sum! Screenshot 8. Let s add Module In this module addition of different numbers is done again aiming at assimilating the arithmetical operation. In case of three wrong answers, a suggestion with the correct answer appears. At the same time, for a better clearness, a particular fruit is being demonstrated above the numbers which corresponds to the amount of numbers to be added. Certain code conditional constructions keep track of the numbers to give a sum up to 10. The total sum in the tasks can never pass 10. Module 8. Let s subtract The instruction in this module is: Subtract the numbers and type the total! 8
Screenshot 9. Let s subtract Module Two numbers from the range to 10 are generated here, compared and positioned in a way always allowing the subtraction of a smaller number from the bigger. Once all modules are finished, a window opens allowing the teacher to focus again on a specific module, if necessary. Screenshot 10. Module selection option A module could be selected without restarting the programme, for example if a student has not performed well enough in a geometrical concept module (Module 4 and 5). Implementation 9
The programme was implemented as a tool for the education of students with intellectual disorder. Picture 1. Working with students with intellectual disorder (Sixth Special school, Sofia) Play and learn with a mouse is used in Sixth Special school, Sofia, by the students of І, ІІ, ІІІ and ІV grade. Picture 2. Good mood is always a mandatory part of the educational process (Sixth Special school, Sofia) Inferences The programme is designed to achieve a part of the goals and expected results in mathematics for the first grade. For instance, Modules 7 and 10 Let s add and Let s subtract pertain to Numbers - the first category from the mathematics education material. The students learn the quantity meaning of the numbers to 10 with these two modules, as well as the basis for understanding numbers. The students receive a basic knowledge for the decimal number 10
system, as well as gain understanding of addition and subtraction operations, addition and subtraction automation of the numbers to 10, addition and subtraction of one digit numbers. Modules 4 and 5 Hit the figures and Hit the right figures pertain to the Plane figures category. The modules give students the possibility to distinguish between geometrical figures like square, circle, triangle, rectangle by their form. Geometrical figures essential characteristics are emphasized by a non-essential characteristic: various colours. Geometrical knowledge of abstract nature demands a wide use of demonstrativeness and for that reason the computerized game presentation is a wonderful alternative for the traditional educational tools, including figure models and diagrams. The programme eliminates the possibility of students being just passive observers and listeners to the teacher s explanations. But instead of cutting, gluing, colouring, drawing, modelling with sticks, plasticine or paper (which alone is very important and recommendable for the mathematics education of students with intellectual disorder), a computer programme is introduced to the students which mobilizes their attention due to the high prestige level of the computer among children. Modules 2 and 6 Colour the apples and Solve the puzzle belong to the Modelling category. In them students learn to model situations described with the relations bigger and smaller, using non-essential indications like colour (Module 2. Colour the apples ). A couple of numbers are examined and compared meaning the rationalization of a number, a few units greater or less than another number (Module 6. Solve the puzzle ). Conclusion Recently, substantial changes were performed in the Bulgarian educational system. Integration process development of students with special educational needs and the ones with mental disabilities, in particular, with the community was recognized as a tool to achieve the freedom, protection of the human rights, social integration and welfare of the children and adults with mental disabilities. Numerous political documents and enactments were passed in order to support the development of new educational services in the community as an alternative to institutional care. Despite all those efforts, the students with mental disabilities are still in an unfavourable situation, threatened by social exclusion and discrimination. The main problems are related to the uneven distribution and insufficient variety of educational services in the community, which leads to the continuing institutionalization of children and adults. Provision of adequate and adapted modern educational tools for the students with intellectual disorders is one of the major problems in Bulgarian education. On account of that, the development of different school appliances (computerized and paper-based) would facilitate the teachers, the parents and mainly the students with special needs, who receive their education at the special, specialized and general education schools, and would, albeit slightly, help to overcome the unfavourable situation of the students with intellectual disorder in Bulgaria. REFERENCES Franklin & Makar 2004: Franklin, D., Makar, J. Macromedia flash mx 2004 actionscript: training from the source. Sofia: Soft press, 2004. Manova & Rangelova 2004: Manova, A., Rangelova, R. Mathematics for first grade. Sofia: Prosveta, 2004. Manova & Rangelova 2006: Manova, A., Rangelova, R. Teacher book for first grade mathematics. Sofia: Prosveta, 2006. Rucker et al. 1985: Rucker, W., Dilley, D., lowry, D. Health mathematics. Basic worksheets. Lexington: D. C. Heath and company, 1985. Rusev et al. 1990a: Rusev, R., Lazarova, R., Trendafilova, N. Mathematics for first grade in special schools for children with mental retardation textbook. Sofia: Narodna prosveta, 1990. 11
Rusev et al. 1990b: Rusev, R., Lazarova, R., Trendafilova, N. Mathematics for first grade in special schools for children with mental retardation (students book ) - 1. Sofia: Narodna prosveta, 1990. Rusev et al. 1990c: Rusev, R., Lazarova, R., Trendafilova, N. Mathematics for first grade in special schools for children with mental retardation (students book) - 2. Sofia: Narodna prosveta, 1990. Saeva 2010: Saeva, S. The education of deaf and hard-of-hearing children at special and mainstream schools in Bulgaria. Bildungschancen hörgeschädigter Schülerinnen und Schüler. Beiträge zur Bildungsdebatte, v.1, 213-226, 2010. Author: Milen Zamfirov, PhD. Special pedagogy departament, Faculty of Primary and Preschool Education, Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski ; e-mail: milen_zamphirov@abv.bg; website: signlanguage-bg.com 12