The availability of high-quality technological applications has grown significantly in recent years, and K–12 classes worldwide now use many of them

By Kiran Dham

Technology has influenced almost all sectors and our day-to-day life altering how we interact, access information, work, and play. Though since the pandemic, it has greatly impacted the education space. The impact is primarily attributed to creating an accessible yet effective learning environment without stepping out in the fear of the pandemic. Even before the pandemic, technology had started impacting the way education was processed and delivered in most of urban spaces, but it really hit hard with its utility and advantages in past few years.

Compared to traditional classroom instruction, these advantages include supporting differentiated instruction, facilitating standardized education, enhancing student engagement, and expanding practice opportunities. Some fear that overuses of time on technology will depersonalize the process for students. In such cases, the best practice suggested seeming to be the blended learning model which involves teachers as the instructors who can drive the classes based on personalization & engagement.

Integrating Technology into Classrooms

The availability of high-quality technological applications has grown significantly in recent years, and K–12 classes worldwide now use many of them. Technology is the way of the future, and young children should be exposed to a digital learning environment to develop the abilities they’ll need to succeed in a digital society. Students’ motivation and individualization may grow with the right implementation of classroom technology.

The best of both worlds’ strategies is allowing certain digital practices to interact with in-person learning to produce a complementary blended-learning model. Since holistic education requires insight into a child’s needs, personal learning styles, effective reinforcement, attention span, and access to resources and support, the role of teachers becomes very important while integrating technology in the classroom correctly.

Digital Content

Digital textbooks, subject matter, course material, reference material, informational articles, and other supplemental reading materials are all available with the technology integration in the classroom. These could be in the form of audio, video, PDF & multimedia resources. Such resources not only help students to get a broader perspective of the subject but also help them with the best of the reading material available across the web platform. It is also highly beneficial for the teachers as they can easily share large reading & reference content with the students digitally. Any experienced teacher will not hastily replace traditional print-based books and instructional material with digital content solely but will engage in a wisely patterned selection of available digital resources to amplify & complement their existing pedagogical approaches & learning objectives.

Personalized learning model

Teachers need to be highly instrumental in devising the right pedagogy strategy since most learners have different learning paces and ways. There are possibilities that one way of teaching might not be similarly effective for two different students.

Based on the same, incorporating digital tools & resources does help teachers to offer personalized learning material & activities which provide an open and equal learning opportunity to students of different temperaments. Teachers can map out the course material & activities based on students’ skills, efficiency & caliber. This will not only

Similarly providing straight-up digital solutions without the intervention of a teacher can remove the personalization part & let the student feel confused & unclear.

Assisting Tools & administrative resources

While incorporating technology in the literacy instruction can bring in a revolutionary change in the learning practices, it equally impacts the teachers & administrative workload. With the help of different tools and activities to support assessment, attendance, progress etc. Teachers can map out different activities to suit the different skills of the students. It is easy to circulate & provide reading materials & resources to students digitally as it creates an accessible and safe repository space. They can also track & maintain the student database easily. Such facilities not only elevate the ease of working for the teachers but also save time in unnecessary tasks which can then be utilized in interacting & connecting with students in classrooms.

Impact of Digital Tools on Literacy Instruction

New research is starting to emerge that supports the use of technology with young pupils due to the ongoing advancement of technology and the expansion of alternative classroom use. This research demonstrates how young pupils can effectively use technology to improve their literacy skills.

Digital Fluency

According to research, interactive technologies in a classroom has a favorable effect on the student’s digital skills. Introducing digital learning solutions at an early age can give them the requisite exposure to the digital environment which makes it easy for them for further education.

High engagement rate

Technology helps creating an engaging & immersive learning environment in the classroom. The methods & tools involved in the digital classrooms like digital storytelling, which involves narrating stories using text, graphics, audio, or video, online assessment activities, online resources helped students to generate interest in the topic and encouraged them to engage with the subject.

Improved Communication

Language learning tools and software provide a wide range of opportunities to bring words to life and help students to gain extensive knowledge about words through video, conversation, brainstorming, and experiences. The communication curriculum contains working on all four pillars of Listening, Speaking, Reading & Writing. Digital language labs offer the right environment and resources to practice & master these skills on the learner’s own pace. With the mix of ILT & CBT practices, students get to have a holistic language learning experience.

Listening

Technology also provides fresh opportunities for pupils to react to the lessons by listening to them and show that they understand them. Digital Language Labs have audio lessons for pronunciation, tone & conversations which guides the students towards the correct communication path & improves their understanding capacity.

Speaking

It works on speaking fluency by giving them the right environment & resources to practice the language. Students can use the headphones & mic to speak & practice their communication skills. They can also watch & learn through the video lessons provided with the resources.

Reading fluency

Reading fluency is reading at a suitable pace with correctness, automaticity, and expression—three characteristics that work together to form a bridge to comprehension. It is an essential part of literacy development. Repeated reading is a well-known method for assisting pupils in enhancing their reading fluency.

Written expression

Such digital labs offer tools to improve the correctness & grammatical errors by offering the right tools. These are highly helpful in expanding your vocab, spell correctness & sentence formation which eventually leads to develop an impressive writing skill.

Improving the Use of Digital Tools

Digital tools can be used in the classroom to boost effectiveness, individualization, and student motivation. However, switching to digital versions of print-based books and instructional materials does not ensure that those resources will be utilized effectively.

Teachers can take the following steps to make sure that the digital activities continue to be a supplement to their literacy instruction rather than its focal point:

Incorporate digital tools in the overall pedagogy process in such a way that it’s enhancing the literal and academic learning process and not overshadowing the same. It should add value to the existing curriculum and supplement it with advanced resources and thought processes.

Teachers can create in-person learning activities based on the content students read on e-readers or the computer program abilities they master. Encourage group or individual activities on these digital platforms to ensure we are enabling the children to self-explore and become much more confident. Fostering discussions about a text’s key concepts, incorporating the transfer and application of reading skills to other subject areas, providing opportunities for students to explore and apply key concepts from the digital repository, having them write predictions or reactions to the digital text, and making connections to other lessons or reading materials are a few examples of how to do this.

Think of digital classroom solutions as a part of a blended learning environment, where peers and the teacher are still the primary sources of contact and instruction for the students. Based on the current education scenario the learning methodologies should be a mix of teacher-led, computer-led, and peer collaboration stations.

Summing Up!

Our culture relies heavily on technology, which impacts how we study, live, work, and play. It may hasten student learning when used to provide access to high-quality content, support differentiated instruction, improve practice opportunities, or boost learner engagement. A wide range of literacy instructions and classroom procedures included technology. Technology usage in the classroom has been shown to increase student enthusiasm, engagement, and overall productivity. The findings also demonstrated that using technology helped students make more thoughtful decisions and supported a learner-centered atmosphere where students’ self-confidence in using technology encouraged them to assume leadership roles.