A key opportunity and challenge with the use of digital technology in schools.

 

Digital technology in school has reshaped how lessons are planned, taught and how my students learn in a digital world. Working with tools like Padlet, Google Earth, and Simpleshow Video Maker has convinced me that the most powerful opportunity lies in deepening students’ digital literacy, but my experiences have also exposed uncomfortable limits in my own practice and in the school’s infrastructure that restrict who can fully benefit from these tools.

One of the most striking opportunities has been seeing students move from passive users of technology to actively working with becoming competent with technology. When students designed climate explainer videos in Simpleshow or curated research walls on Padlet, they were not just using devices they were finding information, making decisions about what to keep or edit, and changing it into tangible information they can digest. This resonates with research that frames digital literacy as the ability to locate, evaluate, create, and communicate information in digital environments, not just operate devices. In practice, this meant students had to question whether a source was trustworthy, decide how best to visualise an abstract concept like ‘continental climate’ and anticipate how their peers would interpret the images and text. These moments felt like authentic digital literacy in action, aligning closely with the broader, critical conception discussed in recent reviews of digital literacy scholarship.​

However, teaching with these tools also exposed some significant challenges that made me question how equitable my digital practice really is. Limited access to devices and unreliable Wi‑Fi regularly disrupted lessons, especially when whole‑class collaboration depended on accessibility. On several occasions, groups lost work mid‑task or could not log in on time, turning planned lessons and tasks into evolving classes and quick adaption. This aligns with literature emphasising that the digital divide is not only about access to devices, but about the quality and continuity of learning experiences that technology can support. In my context, these disruptions most affected students who already had lower confidence, when the technology failed, they were often the first to give up, reinforcing existing gaps rather than closing them.​

My own role in this has also needed critical examination. At times, I was so focused on making the technology work that I did not always make the critical aspects of digital literacy explicit. For example, during the climate video task, some students became absorbed in aesthetic choices lik,e fonts, characters, colours, while the geographical explanation remained vague. This reflects a concern in the literature that engagement with digital tools can become distracting if not firmly anchored in disciplinary thinking and explicit instruction about evaluating and structuring information. In hindsight, I see that my success criteria sometimes did not allow for disruptions or distractions.

These experiences have pushed me to reframe digital literacy in my planning as a central learning objective rather than a final product. The European frameworks on digital competence emphasise critical evaluation, responsible behaviour, and creative re‑elaboration of digital content as core educational aims (European Commission, Joint Research Centre, 2024). This has challenged me to design tasks where students must justify why they chose particular sources, reflect on how images shape interpretation, and discuss the ethical and behavioural dimensions of working online, not just “finish the digital task”. It has also made me more aware that without robust contingency plans and explicit scaffolding, technology can unintentionally exclude or frustrate learners.​

Overall, my personal experience has revealed a tension, digital technology can open powerful spaces for critical, multimodal literacy, but only when contextual constraints and pedagogical choices are addressed honestly. The key opportunity is to help students become thoughtful, critical participants in digital culture; the key challenge is ensuring that the realities of access, confidence, and classroom time do not reduce that ambition to a series of patchy, tool‑driven activities. This reflection has made clear that developing my own digital pedagogy—and advocating for better infrastructure—is as much a part of digital literacy as teaching students to use the tools themselves.

 

Reference:

 

European Commission, Joint Research Centre 2024, Digital Competence Framework (DigComp), European Commission, viewed 7 December 2025, https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/projects-and-activities/education-and-training/digital-transformation-education/digital-competence-framework-digcomp_en.