PROFESSIONAL LITERACIES IN DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS BY TEACHERS FRON THE
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
Professional Literacy; Digital Literacy; Teachers; Specialized Educational Services; Inclusive Education.
This research aims to analyze the practices daily professional and digital literacies of teachers actively involved in Specialized Educational Service (SES) for students with specific education needs. Methodologically, this study is grounded in Applied Linguistics (Kleiman, 2002) and it adopts a field research approach (Gil, 2002), aligning with the principles of qualitative interpretive data-driven investigations (Bogdan; Biklen, 1994; Moita Lopes, 1994), while also incorporating ethnographic elements. The research locus is the Centro Estadual de Educação Especial, located in Natal/RN. The participants are teachers of Portuguese and Literature, Pedagogy, Arts, and Physical Education. Data collection methods included semi-structured interviews (Moreira; Caleffe, 2006), questionnaires (Moreira; Caleffe, 2006), group discussions (Moura; Lima, 2014), photographs, observations, and field notes (Bogdan; Biklen, 1994). It is important to highlight that data collection in these events occurred in a blended format, via Google Meet and WhatsApp to ensure participant safety and prevent potential Covid-19 transmission. The research corpus includes responses gathered from semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, group discussions, observations, field notes and photographs. Theoretical underpinnings drawn from Literacy Studies, viewed as a social practice (Kleiman, 1995; 2005; Rojo, 2009) from a critical perspective (Freire, 1996; 1997; Kleiman; Santos-Marques, 2020), with a focus in work on occupational literacy (Paz, 2008; Costa, 2019), particularly the professional literacy of teachers (Kleiman, 2005; 2008). Furthermore, this research employs the genre textualy/discursive approach as it relates to a teacher's work artifact (Devitt, 2004; Bezerra, 2022; Marcuschi, 2008), digital literacy within the realm of teaching work (Coscarelli, 2019; Buzato, 2006; Ribeiro, 2014; Rojo, 2020), as well as the interrelationship between inclusive education, special education and SES (Mec/Seesp, 2008; Brasil, 2015; Inep, 2020) and in teaching activities in the regular classroom and in SES (Modica et al, 2020; Mec/ Seesp, 2008). The research results suggest that participants engage in both technical tasks, such as reporting and handling the SIGEDUC platform, and pedagogical tasks, such as planning, activities, and educational games. The challenges faced by teachers in the professional and digital realm are due to the absence of technological tools, unstable internet networks, and insufficient technical training for handling digital platforms. The strategies applied by teachers in order to alleviate these difficulties highlight the use of their own digital tools (computer, tablet, smartphones), private mobile internet plan, they learn intuitively and or turn to more experienced people to understand and know how to use the tools digitals technological.