TEACHING BASIC NUMBER THEORY TO STUDENTS WITH SPEECH AND COMMUNICATION DISABILITIES USING MULTIMEDIA

Ioannis Deliyannis, Department of Audiovisual Arts; Panayiotis Vlamos, Department of Informatics; Andreas Floros, Tania Tsiridou and Christina Simpsiri, Department of Audiovisual Arts, Ionian University, Greece

Under this research we developed a system destined as a teaching aid for students with communication difficulties. Our methodology examines the underlying mathematical concepts from a highly analytical perspective and derives appropriate courseware material of equivalent quality. The case-studies described in this paper deliver basic courseware on number theory and generalised mathematical concepts by presenting the geometrical meaning of the underlying concepts and providing alternative representations that enable understanding of the underlying theory. This process has resulted in the development of a visual set of case-studies that teach basic mathematical and geometrical concepts which may subsequently be extended to algorithms such as division, Greatest Common Divider, multiplication, least common multiplier, attributes and requirements for division. Interactive multimedia technologies are used extensively in the development of the teaching environment. A game-like interface aided by realistic binaural audio and animation has proved to attract user-attention for longer periods than using traditional teaching methods, aiding the educational process by providing an immersive multimedia interactive-learning alternative, for students with communication problems.