Enhancing learning through digital tools and practices - How digital technology in compulsory education can help promote inclusion (2021)

Carried out over 12 months between September 2020 and September 2021, this EU comparative educational study aimed to assess the actual and potential role of digital technologies in promoting access, quality and equity in compulsory school education across Europe, and their role in complementing and enhancing traditional forms of teaching and learning. 

Key findings:

• The study found that access to digital infrastructure and high-quality tools are pre-requisites for leveraging digitalisation for inclusive education.
• Despite the importance of ensuring that learners have access to digital technology, it is clear that access alone is not a guarantor of learning outcomes. Teachers and learners require specific pedagogically-oriented digital skills to integrate digital technologies into teaching and learning practice effectively
• Digital inclusion for specific vulnerable learner groups has typically been in the form of piecemeal, bottom-up initiatives without a guiding framework at system level.
• in promoting the inclusion of learners with developmental and attention problems in compulsory education, the research suggests that digital tools could be particularly useful in shielding this learner group from distracting sound, light, sight and movements, making it easier to focus and maintain concentration