Designing and Developing Educational Mobile Application Training for Teacher Candidates for Innovative Pathways

With the widespread use of mobile technologies today, educational mobile applications have become increasingly important not only for general education, but also for special education. Motivated by the imperative to equip future educators with the knowledge to utilise these pivotal tools, qualitative research on prospective teachers/educators enrolled in an Italian university was designed to discern their needs concerning educational mobile application training following an inclusive approach. As an initial step, a needs analysis form was administered to 171 teacher candidates in a pilot study, with any ambiguities in the form subsequently addressed. This was followed by consultations with four special education experts, which informed the development of a provisional training plan and accompanying materials. The refined needs analysis form was later disseminated to a different set of 57 prospective teachers/educators. Drawing on the insights from these data, the conclusive training plan and materials were developed, integrating feedback from two educational technology specialists. The training spanned a cumulative duration of 10 h. At its culmination, feedback was garnered from the participants and assessed to gauge the efficacy and pertinence of the training regimen. The study can contribute in analysing the training needs and students’ expectations in terms of curriculum development towards technology-enhanced learning with a focus on mobile applications, special needs, and inclusive approaches.