The digital tools the teachers use together with their students

Get Complete Project Material File(s) Now! »

Positive and negative sides of digital tools, according to teachers

T1 explained that her experience with the positive sides of digital tools is that, as a teacher, one can customize the lesson for each student with digital tools. Digital tools also speed up the pace of the lesson, so that the students do not get the feeling that the English classes are boring or slow. On the other hand, the negative side is that you need to monitor students more closely. When students only have a pen and a paper, you can easily see if they are not working, but if they have a computer, they can do whatever they want if the teacher does not monitor them. T1 said that if the students have time to spend on non-schoolwork, the teacher needs to reassess their timing and level of difficulty in order to keep the class’ attention. It is essential to check why the students get distracted. Are the assignments too easy, too hard?
T2 said that the positive sides of digital tools are that (especially for students with reading and writing difficulties) the process of reading and working with texts is far easier. T2 appreciates the fact that they have access to current articles, texts and news. On the negative side, T2 explains that as long as the digital tools work as they should, there are not really any downsides to use them. However, it is important to remember that the work still needs to be done by the students.
T3 said that generally digital tools are great because of the information the internet holds. She works a lot with fact-checking as well. T3 feels that the opportunities and variation digital tools provide make teaching and learning more accessible and fun. T3 explained that there has been a discussion around platforms such as YouTube being only for entertainment, but she believes that it is excellent as an educational tool as well. The negative side to digital tools, according to T3, is that they can be a huge distraction. This can be extra difficult for students with ADD or ADHD.

Teachers’ perceptions of their students’ attitudes towards digital tool

T1 expained that there is not a “wow-reaction” from the students when she brings iPads or computers to the classroom, but the students do prefer to use the computers over the iPads. Her students appreciate variation but can work with both digital and non-digital tools. For the students in 7th grade (who are in the one-to-one program), T1 has decided (together with the students) that they are mainly going to use the computers and digital tools from now on instead of the textbook. T2 says that his students’ attitudes toward digital tools are mainly positive, as long as they function properly. If they do function properly, the students have no problem using digital tools. T3, similar to T1, describes that there is no “wow-reaction” but that he students with reading and writing difficulties appreciate digital tools a lot.

Analysis of results and conclusion

To conclude this essay, the findings will be summarized, analyzed and concluded in this section. Both the students’ and the teacher’s perceptions and use of tools will be discussed
While the students use a few or no digital tools at all, the teachers interviewed find a number of tools helpful for students with dyslexia or other learning difficulties. However, what both the students and teachers have in common is their use of the reading assistant. This seems to be the tool that is most helpful. Poss (2017b, 1:00) explains that the text-to-speech tool (also known as a reading assistant) gives the students with reading and writing difficulties (such as dyslexia) a chance to understand a text that they might not be able to understand if they read on their own. Both the teachers and the students interviewed see the speech-to-text tool as a tool that gives the students a chance of understanding a text better. Since the interviewees in this essay use the tool text-to-speech frequently, one might conclude that the interviewees perceive the tool as something that makes the learning process more accessible for the students with reading and writing difficulties by supporting them in the reading process. Most of the tools discussed in the interviews are used to facilitate the physical act of writing and reading and to create an efficient learning process for the students with dyslexia.
Even though not all students with dyslexia might feel the need to use digital tools to improve their skills in English reading and writing, they can be helpful to use. The two students who were interviewed had different perceptions of digital tools. While Jonas believes that digital tools help him improve his English, Jessica is not as convinced. Jessica feels that she is able to “control” her dyslexia today and expresses that it does not feel like it makes her struggle as much as it used to. Based on the two interviews one can assume that even though a student has struggled with reading and writing because of their dyslexia, they might find ways to manage it.
As stated in the background section, one can learn to, for example, decode and alleviate some aspects of their dyslexia (TED-ed, 3:20, 2013). Digital tools can also be a reason to why a student does not struggle as much with their dyslexia as they used to. Cruger (2017, 8:26) explains that a student with dyslexia can lack general knowledge because they cannot access it in the same way as a “standard reader”, but with help from digital tools students with dyslexia might be able to “catch up” on the standard readers, as for example Jonas expresses that he has. T3 also expresses that digital tools, such as the computer or iPad, are helpful for students to get access to the web and widen their knowledge.

READ AFRIKAN MASCULINITIES AND CULTURE

1.Introduction
2.Aim and Research Questions
3.Background
3.1 What is dyslexia?
3.2 Dyslexia and motivation
3.3 What is ADD/ADHD?
3.4 The Swedish National Agency of Education’s inclusion of digital
3.5 What tools can be helpful for students with dyslexia?
4.Method of Study
4.1 Interviews
4.2 Material
5. Results and Analysis
5.1 Results from the interviews with the students
5.1.1 The digital tools the students use
5.1.2 Teachers’ encouragement and students’ motivation
5.1.3 Disadvantages with digital
5.2 Results from the interviews with the teachers
5.2.1 The digital tools the teachers use together with their students.
5.2.2 Teachers’ perspectives on digital tools’ impact on their students’ motivation
5.2.3 Teachers’ perceptions of their students’ development connected to digital tools
5.2.4 Positive and negative sides of digital tools, according to teachers
5.2.5 Teachers’ perceptions of their students’ attitudes towards digital tools .
5.3 Analysis of results and conclusion
6. References