A Bridge or a Wall: Teachers Mediating ICT in the Classroom

Abstract

While information and communication technology (ICT) has changed every aspect of our lives and will continue to do so, it is the role of education to prepare students adequately for their future adult lives in the digital age. This places high expectations on teachers. This article aims to provide an understanding of how teachers’ attitudes towards ICT in the classroom are reflected in the regular use of ICT in their daily teaching practices and how teachers describe their role in preparing young people for adult life in the digital age. Data from the DigiGen project are used, which entails in-depth semi-structured interviews with eight general-education (grades 1–12) teachers from Estonia. The results indicate that teachers’ attitudes vary—while some perceive ICT as a natural part of life, others have more moderate or even sceptical attitudes towards ICT use in the classroom. Teachers’ practices in using ICT in the classroom differ greatly, but most are monotonous, putting students in a passive role. Teachers understand their role in preparing young people for adult life in the digital age as important, although this is not reflected in their practices.

1. Introduction

Today’s generation has been shaped by widespread digitality and technology [1]. This applies especially to young people and adolescents, who form the majority of Internet users today [2,3]. Information and communication technology (ICT) is changing the field of education around the world, and technology is modifying the way that people learn and will continue to do so in the coming years [4]. Because the use of ICT and the Internet are considered rather essential skills in present-day society, the constructive use of ICT is a “priority for formal, non formal, and informal education” [5] (p. 1). Although computers have been in use in education since the last decades of the 20th century [6] and the demand for using ICT in educational institutions is increasing [7], doubts persist regarding teachers’ competence and confidence in the use of ICT [6]. As ICT is an inevitable part of education, teachers, educators and educational institutions should “rethink their roles, teaching and vision for the future” [8] (p. 97). This entails more than the basic use of technology and required skills, just like the meaningful integration of ICT into the classroom requires more than the mere use of technology [7].

The risks of ICT use have received much attention, but the benefits of using ICT in education have long been recognised [9,10,11]. In addition to supporting students’ creativity and collaborative learning, it improves self-efficacy [12], the general quality of education [7] and access to education [8,13]. From teachers’ perspective, the skilful use of ICT helps to reduce the administrative workload [14,15], and studies have shown that administrative tasks are responsible for the bulk of the increase in teachers’ workloads [16,17,18]. Consequently, the question is not whether teachers should integrate ICT into their teaching but how [19].

This is especially important because 75 per cent of 15- to 24-year-olds use the Internet [20], illustrating that being online and using ICT is part of young people’s everyday lives. Prensky [21], who has since received significant criticism, coined a term to describe the generation born after the 1980s, who have been surrounded by technology: Digital natives, in that “students today are all ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet”. The term “digital natives” describes children and young people as a “homogeneous group who are capable of integrating new media into their everyday lives” [22] (p. 98). However, research has shown that children and young people do not automatically have skills related to new media and ICT and, therefore, cannot be seen as a homogeneous, digitally native group [23,24,25,26]. As a result, the role of teachers as mediators in educational systems is especially important in helping students navigate a world in which technology is ubiquitous and preparing them for adult life in the digital age. As Vázques-Cano et al. [27] (p. 3) put it, “the protagonist of educational action is the student, who must face this technological society and who has transformed the different ways of communicating, learning, accessing work, etc.”.

This article aims to provide an understanding of how teachers’ attitudes towards integrating ICT into the classroom are put into practice through their habitual and regular use of ICT in their daily teaching. In addition, the article describes how teachers perceive their own role in preparing young people for adult life in the digital age. To achieve these objectives, three research questions (RQ) were formulated:

RQ1: What are teachers’ attitudes towards the use of digital devices and environments in daily teaching?

RQ2: What is teachers’ habitual, regular use of ICT in their daily teaching?

RQ3: How do teachers describe their role in preparing young people for adult life in the digital age?

It is known that teachers’ use of technology is strongly affected by their attitude towards technology [28]. Being aware of teachers’ attitudes, their ICT practices and the roles they attribute themselves in preparing youngsters for adult life in the digital age allows us to understand better how they are preparing students. Estonia offers an interesting perspective as a country well-known for integrating technology into learning processes, teaching youngsters digital skills since the 1990s [29]. At the same time, Estonian students, who are among the youngest ones globally to access the Internet (at under 6 years old), believe that technology has a positive impact on their quality of life [30]. Therefore, Estonian teachers provide an interesting case for examining the topic.

The research questions are answered in the post-COVID-19 pandemic context, putting into focus teachers’ attitudes and practices after the period of emergency remote learning and distance learning, where educational technology was the main, if not the only, means available for teachers to teach. Thus, this study reveals the attitudes, practices and understanding of the role of teachers after the pandemic, a period when learning was mainly carried out through ICT.

The article relies on UNESCO’s [31] (p.120) definition of ICT as “a diverse set of technical tools and resources used to transmit, store, create, share or exchange information”. It is added that “These technological tools and resources include computers, the Internet (websites, blogs and emails), live broadcasting technologies (radio, television and webcasting), recorded broadcasting technologies (podcasting, audio and video players, and storage devices) and telephony (fixed or mobile, satellite, visio/video conferencing etc.)” [31] (p.120).

2. Digital Inequalities and the Three Levels of the Digital Divide

In 2022, approximately 34% of the world’s population, or 2.7 billion people, were not online [20]. The lack of access to or skills in using ICT paves the way to social exclusion [32] and exacerbates existing inequality. Digital inequalities correspond to the “traditional social stratification in terms of Socio-Economic Status (SES), income and education” [33] (p. 28), and “digital exclusion is often compounded by existing social disadvantages” [34] (p. 934). SES is a common factor across studies of both access to technology and how it is used in and outside of schools [35]. Computer and information literacy (CIL) is reported to be lower among people from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds [35,36]. SES also affects the purpose of ICT use: People with a higher SES generally use ICT to seek information, learn and for work-related activities, whereas individuals with a lower SES have higher motivation to use ICT for entertainment and social exchange [37]. Similar to SES, students’ ethnic-minority background affects their ICT use. Students from immigrant families have exhibited significantly lower CIL scores than students from non-immigrant families [38]. The same pattern exists with the language spoken at home: People who speak the language of the ICILS (International Computer and Information Literacy Study) test at home have higher CIL scores than those who speak a different language at home [38]. The use of the Internet during weekends also varies based on national origin as individuals of foreign origin spend fewer hours on the Internet than people not of foreign origin [39].

At the same time, more skilful Internet users have better opportunities to secure employment and earn more than less skilful individuals as the need for and significance of digital skills increase across occupations [40]. Digitalisation itself (public services, e-health) holds the potential to overcome spatial injustice/geographical inequality [41] and encourage social inclusion [42]. With the meaningful integration of ICT, it may improve the quality of education, as stated in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 [43]. Importantly, all of this implies that users are skilful enough to harvest the beneficial aspects of ICTs in their everyday life realms.

Skills and competencies related to ICT are transferred to other fields of life, such as work-related and educational possibilities and participation in decision-making processes (including civic participation), which are connected to ICT usage [43,44]. The digital divide amplifies the social inequalities that exist outside the digital realm, especially for marginalised and disadvantaged people, and already-existing inequalities reinforce the digital divide [41,45,46], thereby reproducing and reinforcing inequality.

The gap between people with and without access to ICT is referred to as the digital divide [47], which can be categorised into three levels. Until recently, the focus was mostly on the first level of the digital divide [48,49], also known as the original divide, which concerns access to ICT and the Internet [50]. As the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated, students with no access to technology were affected more profoundly, and students’ learning losses worsened [51] (p. 2). The second level of the divide relates to the skills and competencies needed to use the Internet and ICTs adequately, safely and confidently [50]. A third level of the digital divide has only recently gained attention [49,50]. It refers to “inequalities in the capacities to get the benefits from the access and use of the Internet” [50] (p. 6), that is, inequality in the tangible outcomes derived from ICT use [52].

Talaee and Noroozi [33] (p. 28) point out that “mere ICT access may generate another social stratification in regard to educational success” as focusing on access to and the uptake of ICT ignores “the importance of social capabilities” [53] (p. 2). ICT access does not necessarily lead to the use of ICT and the Internet or entail that their use is meaningful [33]: “Meaningful access to ICT comprises far more than merely providing computers and Internet connections. Rather, access to ICT is embedded in a complex array of factors encompassing physical, digital, human and social resources and relationships” [54] (p. 6). More people than ever have access to ICT globally, but what is concerning is the gap in the quality of use of ICT among people with access to it [33] (p. 30). It follows that “forms of digital exclusion persist among those who access the internet” [55] (p. 1).

At the same time, different spheres of everyday life have migrated online. Remote learning, teleworking, shopping or paying bills, and booking travel or doctor visits online show that “exclusion or even limited access to the digital arena means missing chances, resources, and opportunities in different areas of daily life, which cannot be accessed otherwise” [55] (p. 2). Meanwhile, education is perceived as the “great equaliser” [55,56] and is thus expected to help reduce inequalities, including in accessing and working with ICT. Because of this inequality, teachers play a crucial role in their students’ use of ICT for educational purposes as they “determine the behaviour of their students” [57] (p. 2).

3. Teachers as ICT Mediators

Teachers are considered to have extensive supporting or limiting effects when it comes to students’ use of technology [34,57]. This aligns with Ertmer et al. [58] according to whom there are two types of barriers to teachers’ ICT practices in the classroom: First- and second-order barriers. First-order barriers are considered external and comprise the available resources (software and hardware), relevant training and support in the use of ICT [58]. Second-order barriers are internal and include teachers’ beliefs and confidence, as well as the recognised value of ICT in educational processes [58]. While it is apparent that without access to ICT and the Internet, little can be done to integrate ICT into teaching and learning, second-order barriers are seen as an even “greater challenge” [58] (p. 423). As Gerick, Eickelmann and Bos [28] (p. 8) emphasise, it is the characteristics of teaching staff that seem to be “the most important supporting factors for the use of ICT in teaching”. Moreover, while external factors can be mitigated by adding (financial and human) resources, internal factors (e.g., beliefs regarding ICT, willingness to implement different educational practices, etc.) are “likely to remain stable over time” [59] (p. 734). In addition to attitudes, the integration of ICT into education relies on the aptitudes of teachers [12].

The meaningful use of ICT in the learning process makes it possible to tailor the learning process to the needs of different students within the same classroom, allowing teachers to put differentiation in the learning process into practice [60]. Furthermore, “through education, the teaching staff have the capacity to offer more opportunities for digital world utilisation, and to avoid potential risks—such as cyberbullying, sexting, sextortion or contact with unknown people—which may cause actual harm” [7] (p. 2).

4. Materials and Methods

Semi-structured in-depth interviews were carried out with eight Estonian teachers in the framework of the DigiGen project. DigiGen (The impact of technological transformations on the digital generation) is a European research project that has produced significant knowledge about how present-day children and young people, a group often referred to as the Digital Generation, use and are affected by the technological transformations in their everyday lives. The DigiGen project’s overall study design is presented in greater detail at digigen.eu and by Eickelmann et al. [61]. Using purposive sampling, eight teachers were selected with varied genders and ages, teaching experience and subjects, types of schools and their main teaching study levels. An overview of the sample is presented in

Table 1. Overview of the sample.

Participant	Gender/Age	Teaching Experience	Subjects	Type of School	School Level Taught
1	Male/31	4 years	History, social studies	State-owned gymnasium	Gymnasium
2	Female/40	3 years	English language, entrepreneurship	Lower secondary	Lower secondary
3	Female/30	2 years	Estonian as a second language, research	Gymnasium with two teaching languages (Russian and Estonian)	Gymnasium
4	Female/59	8 years	English, class teacher	Gymnasium in the capital	Both gymnasium and lower secondary
5	Female/30	5 years	Biology, chemistry, natural sciences	Kindergarten-lower secondary (Kindergarten-lower secondary represents a type of school in Estonia where children from kindergarten up to lower secondary level are taught. )	Lower secondary
6	Female/63	43 years	Mathematics	Kindergarten-lower secondary	Lower secondary
7	Male/33	6 years	Biology	Gymnasium	Gymnasium
8	Male/31	6 years	French language	Gymnasium in the capital	Lower secondary and gymnasium

.

The type of schools varies geographically and by size. Participants 2, 5 and 6 represent small rural-area schools, whereas others (1, 4, 7 and 8) represent larger urban schools, some of which are in the capital. One participant from East Estonia (3) is from a school where education is provided in two languages: 60% in Estonian and 40% in Russian.

The study received approval from the Ethics Committee of Tallinn University (Decision No. 10, 15 April 2020), and written and signed informed consent was obtained from each participant before the interview. The interview plan entailed 37 questions in six different thematic categories (ICT use in education and the importance of students’ background; understanding teachers’ views and their impact; the importance of transitional stages in education; assessing teachers’ views; long-term effects of ICT use; effects of the COVID-19 pandemic). The interviews covered various aspects, from the equipment available to both students and teachers to the competencies needed by future teachers. The interview plan was created in close collaboration with the international group of researchers working on the DigiGen project. The interviews lasted between 1 h and 25 min to 2 h and 44 min, with most approximating 2 h.

A pilot interview was conducted with Participant 1. The interview plan did not subsequently require major changes, allowing us to use the interview of Participant 1 in the final analysis. All interviews were carried out and recorded via Zoom between June and September 2021 by the same researcher. All participants had used Zoom before and did not need additional help on how to use Zoom. The participants had their cameras switched off, whereas the interviewer had her camera on. The interviews were carried out in Estonian, transcribed and analysed using qualitative content analysis with a deductive approach [61]. With qualitative content analysis, the material is analysed gradually and results in a categorisation of the content into analytical units [62]. A deductive approach was required by the DigiGen project given that relevant previous research enabled—at least to some extent—the predetermination of the categories [63]. The analysis was carried out using NVivo.

The analysis performed for the DigiGen project resulted in 20 categories with 69 subcategories (most of which are not presented here). In the present article, the results of the DigiGen data analysis are used as secondary material to analyse and answer the research questions.

Table 2. Overview of the (sub)categories from the DigiGen data used for the study.

Research Question	Category from the DigiGen Analysis
RQ1: What are teachers’ attitudes towards the use of digital devices and environments in daily teaching?	Teachers’ attitudes towards ICT use in education and learning
RQ2: What are teachers’ habitual, regular use of ICT in their daily teaching?	Teachers’ ICT use while teaching
RQ3: How do teachers describe their role in preparing young people for adult life in the digital age?	Teachers’ role in the digital age

gives an overview of which categories generated from the DigiGen data were used to answer the research questions.

5. Results

In the following, the results are presented according to the RQs and participants to bring out and bind each participant’s attitude, regular use and described roles in preparing young people for adult life in the digital age. For each RQ, a short explanation with contextual information is provided regarding how the data analysis led to the results.

5.1. What Are the Teachers’ Attitudes towards the Use of ICT in Daily Teaching?

The interviews were analysed comprehensively to identify the attitudes of teachers in their descriptions of their everyday use or general discussions of the importance of ICT in the future. This resulted in a separate category (with no subcategories) in the analysis (Teachers’ attitudes towards ICT use in education and learning), allowing us to understand teachers’ attitudes through their descriptions of actions and corresponding discussions about the importance of ICT.

Participant 1 highlighted two different ideas regarding ICT use in education. The first one views ICT from a balanced perspective, treating ICT as a natural part of everyday life:

“Not to talk about technology as something only positive or something only negative, but to describe that, yes, it allows us to do this, its dangers are that. And it affects our life like this […] We somehow didn’t take technology out of the big picture all the time.”

This illustrates an attitude towards technology as a natural, integrated part of everyday life, including education, where what matters is to understand what it allows its users to do and what threats it entails. This aligns well with Participant 1′s second idea regarding ICT, in which a more conscious approach is visible:

“I have a feeling that the purposeful use of ICT always comes at the expense of something else. Whether it is at the expense of students’ time and health and, well, the expense of workload, so to say. Whether it comes at the expense of socialising, of the time spent outside […] ICT has great potential for developing certain things; the question is how much we should use this potential, because it has great potential in certain things, but not in all things.”

The phrase “but not in all things” signals that there are cases where ICT does not serve a valuable purpose and its use is thus not justified.

Participant 2 recognised her good “contact” with ICT, which she links to belonging to the generation that saw computers emerge and in which not everyone owned a computer. Therefore, she sees ICT as a natural part of life for some generations but not necessarily as a natural part of life in general:

“With technology, I have this good relationship or contact, and I think that the reason for that is that I have grown [up], I am that generation that has grown up with computers, when they only emerged, when not everyone had a computer at home, and I have just gradually stepped into it and it has become like a natural part.”

Nonetheless, she suggests that teachers in general are afraid to use technology:

“Teachers are a little afraid of using technology […] As an activity leader [in the school], I am inevitably at the board, I see these ‘pains’, these ‘growing pains’. That if you have the [ICT] devices, but no one dares to take them.”

This demonstrates that although Participant 2 is not afraid of using ICT, she recognises that others are. At the same time, she appreciates the possibilities offered by ICT:

“I am actually very happy that we have this digital age, I am happy that I live in that time […] I am grateful that a great many opportunities have been created [thanks to technology].”

Examples 3–5 illustrate more than one attitude. Participant 2 mentions others being afraid of ICT; therefore, her good contact with technology and her happiness to have a part in the digital age cannot easily be extended to others.

Participant 3, like Participant 1, evidences a more conscious and somewhat more critical approach to ICT:

“This sense of a reasonable use, where it is okay [to use], what is a productive [use], it fills its goal and where the work today is perhaps idle […] That very question of whether I use it [ICT] purposefully or it is using me.”

In addition, she feels that ICT is being pushed on teachers:

“A teacher is autonomous and has to choose, based on herself/himself and learners, all types of solutions, right, so why is it as if standard digital stuff were being pushed on [us], that now everyone has to do everything digitally. Evaluate yourself as a teacher, how much do you bring the digital [technologies] in, what methods do you use and how much your students, how they must act in this digital environment. […] it is like a big race to see who can use the most digital environments.”

This notion that ICT is pushed into education leads to a dilemma for Participant 3:

“I have this dilemma that I have to take the students for the exam and in reality we don’t do anything digital with the 11th grade, we write everything by hand. […] I’ve let [them] do digital stuff, right, and now suddenly there is an exam and [students] start to paint the letter A.”

This example illustrates concerns about students’ handwriting; nonetheless, from a broader perspective, it also shows that there is a need for balance in the education system. Although the participant feels that ICT is being pushed on teachers, there are other aspects of the education system that do not follow this path or where the extent of ICT use has rather negative effects. For instance, because exams in general education are taken with a pen and paper, if a student’s handwriting is not legible for the evaluator, an answer is considered wrong. However, it is known that Estonia has started to prepare for the use of digital exams, and the first digital exams will take place at the end of the 2024/2025 schoolyear [64].

Participant 4 demonstrates a different perspective on the use of ICT in education. When asked about her attitudes towards her use of ICT in her teaching, she questioned the purpose of the use of ICT in the classroom:

“My principle has been that—and really those more experienced pedagogues, two from our school—that we shouldn’t use computers in the class just for the sake of [using] the computer.”

Although it is up to teachers to plan and implement the use of ICT during their teaching, this goes unrecognised by the participant. Other interviewees also expressed a more critical stance regarding the use of computers (see examples 2, 6–7), Participant 4, unlike others, added:

“In my opinion, they play games [on their phones] with each other […] But why don’t they talk to each other? […] I don’t know. […] I think brain researchers also talked about how we always seek to get something new and if we don’t have that thing in our hands, then perhaps we miss something, but actually what we get out of it, at least in the case of adults, it is just that we don’t get much from it. I, for example […] use my phone only for calling.”

Interestingly, Participant 4 compares her use of phones with her students, arguing that they used them excessively. She still adds, similarly to Participant 2, that teachers are afraid of using computers.

“They [teachers] are still afraid of using this computer in my opinion.”

Like Participant 1, Participant 5 treats ICT as a natural part of her everyday work life:

“These digital tools are like a completely natural part. […] In my classes, I say, it is [the use of ICT] on a daily basis, absolutely, I cannot carry out classes and studying without it.”

Participant 5 experiences ICT as a necessity but clarifies that her school also encourages the use of ICT, arguing that the world is turning more towards ICT:

“In my opinion, our school rather propagates it, the use of these digital tools, because it is the world today and today the world turns more and more towards digital tools […] so that students would also understand that computers and phones are first and foremost tools for work.”

Compared to others, Participant 6 exhibited the most modest and cautious attitude towards the use of ICT:

“Unfortunately, you inevitably have to use a computer.”

“Let’s be honest, there is too much of it [digital technology]. In my opinion, there is too much. And there is much use of the phone or picking it up.”

“Let’s be honest, actually this textbook material and the use of it, I am an old-school person in terms of the fact that children’s manual activities are very poor anyway so I don’t let them draw with GeoGebra.”

Her modest and cautious perspective may be related to the fact that her students are younger than Participant 1′s or Participant 3′s and, therefore, more attention is given to motor skills and manual activities. In addition, she has also been a teacher for the longest among all the participants, and she refers to herself as an “old-school person”. This might be reflected in her teaching methods as ICT use has not been part of her teacher training or practice at the beginning of her professional life.

In contrast, Participant 7 considers digital technology a tool, whose purpose is chosen by the user:

“For me, digital technological tools are just tools. They are tools, I could use a laptop as a coffee tray, but this is not its purpose and at the end, the person behind it sets [the use of] it […] How you set its aim and how you use it and if you [go] with the assumption that a digital thing is bad, then you give up on that.”

“Everything has pros and cons, digital tools have given greater freedom, but they also have their cons.”

As the last example reveals, Participant 7 does not consider digital tools to always be useful, reflecting a more balanced view (similar to Participants 1 and 3; see examples 1–2, 6) of the use of ICT.

Participant 8 regarded digital technology as an inevitable part of the future and, therefore, education:

“In that sense, they won’t escape technology in the future. This [education] is definitely a part of the preparation.”

As the results show, teachers’ attitudes towards the use of digital devices and environments in daily teaching differ. Some view ICT as a natural or inevitable part of everyday life and therefore consider that it should be represented in school life as well, not ‘taken out’ or ‘forced’ artificially. Others feel that ICT is too ubiquitous, and its use must be cut back, at least in classrooms. Some add that ICT is being pushed on teachers to be used in the classroom, and others argue that teachers are afraid of ICT. Despite different—sometimes even opposing—attitudes, one idea was brought up several times: The use of ICT must be purposeful and critical in a sense that would allow the users to understand what ICT is good for.

Although Estonia has a long history of integrating ICT into education, and the digitalisation of learning processes has been the focus of policies [29], the attitudes of currently working teachers towards ICT use in daily teaching still vary greatly. Nevertheless, although the current education system in Estonia cannot be managed without ICT, this is not always reflected in the attitudes of teachers. At the same time, regardless of the beliefs of their teachers, it is the students who “must face this technological society” [27] (p. 3). Interestingly, as will become evident in the following section, the ICT use of the most sceptical teachers reflected their attitudes towards ICT more accurately than that of teachers with a positive attitude towards ICT.

5.2. What Is the Teachers’ Habitual, Regular Use of ICT in Their Daily Teaching?

The everyday practices of teachers regarding the use of ICT were examined only in the settings of classrooms and during learning and teaching. Therefore, the following leaves out the emergency remote-learning or distance-learning period and ignores the use of ICT by teachers when preparing a class, collaborating with other teachers or communicating with students or their parents. The objective is to gain an understanding of how teachers employ ICT in their everyday teaching settings without major disruptions (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) rather than focus on extraordinary circumstances. This enables us to highlight teachers’ use of ICT during the learning process and to determine whether and how students are involved in this type of ICT use.

In his everyday practices, Participant 1 used ICT in varying ways, including to convey information and to allow students to have an active role by creating the educational content themselves with ICT.

“starting from YouTube, you’re using it to pass on the material and so forth […] we used Google Maps to create this so-called interactive map, basically, we put ancient places of Estonia on a map. And then we could travel on this so-called ancient map […] filming and photography. And audio recordings. And regarding filming, then editing films […] in terms of making the students less tired, so to speak, you try to use talking yourself, book, video, audio sometimes, so, you vary it a lot all the time.”

An interesting example he provided is writing tweets on the topic of the class. Although this was performed with a pen and paper, he argued that this also brings in the “digital language”.

“Write a one-tweet-long summary of today’s class and add keywords with hashtags […] in that sense it is digital, that it is some sort of computer language, that comes in[to offline life] from somewhere.”

Participant 1 uses ICT as a means to convey information in every class, including slides, showing videos and photos, as well as looking up information. “Video projects”, in which students direct and record videos on a specific topic, are carried out once or twice during the course. His everyday practices align well with his attitude towards ICT use, which reflects a balanced yet conscious perspective on ICT as a natural part of life (see more in Section 5.1, examples 1–2).

This shows that as a natural part of life, ICT is something that the students themselves use as well instead of merely “consuming” the ICT use of their teacher (e.g., watching slides, observing what the teacher is using ICT for). These practices address the second level (skills) and potentially even the third level (benefits) of the digital divide.

In her teaching, Participant 2 sought to present the variety and the different opportunities offered by technology:

“My idea is perhaps to show children the variety, that these things exist […] My ‘thermostat’ is my students, what they want and what makes them happy and what they might need when thinking of where they want to go on, what they want to do later on.”

Discussing her everyday teaching practices in the classroom, she argued that although children do not need numerous software programmes, they have to thoroughly know three or four. She added that she and her students occasionally have so-called “digital-free weeks” where classes are held outside of the school and no ICT is used.

“I use almost everything, but actually, as a teacher, I have understood that you can’t stuff children full of everything at once. I usually make these monthly plans. And some months I have decided that on that month we use this, bring your own device and then we try to explore the possibilities of our smartphone and software compatible with it.”

Participant 2 continued to specify the tools and environments she used in her everyday practices:

“a media board, which I don’t have in my class, but I sometimes borrow my colleagues’ classroom […] for learning vocabulary, Kahoot is very good to use. Or is it watching some video or listening to something. […] for example, I’ve made games in Jamboard […] And sometimes we have visualised on a poster, then you also need a digital device, but it is not always possible to use it.”

Although her use of digital tools in the classroom varies, compared to Participant 1, it does not use as much of the potential to let students create content with ICT, putting her students mostly in the role of consuming their teacher’s ICT use. This difference may be due to her teaching younger children than Participant 1. Participant 2′s everyday practices address mostly the first (access) and second levels (skills) of the digital divide.

Participant 3 underlined that her everyday use of ICT in the classroom focuses on one environment: Google for Education.

“At the moment, I focus on how to most reasonably build up my e-courses in Google for Education because I work in a school where this is the main environment and I want it to be maximised. And then perhaps one, two environments more that I teach to my students […] I am very, very critical about what I take, what I don’t take and whether it is reasonable at all and what is this functionality.”

Her everyday practices tend to prioritise maximising the opportunities provided by one platform rather than the use of multiple platforms. Her practice aligns well with her feeling that ICT is being pushed on teachers (see example 7). Compared to Participants 1 and 2, Participant 3 is highly focused on access to a specific ICT, which corresponds mostly to the first (access) and second (skills) levels of the digital divide.

Participant 4 discussed several ways of using ICT:

“A lot of different materials, for example, British Council and these different organisations’ materials that I can share with the document camera to the class.”

“Sharing any kind of information on the computer, but I can’t say that I use any specific app.”

“Either I share the screen view, then with the document camera or we listen to some text or […] then I showed them a few videos and said that, by the way, yesterday morning there was a very interesting nature programme from Madagascar on Estonian National TV and I asked them to watch it.”

These examples (26–28) all indicate that Participant 4 does not appear to give students a chance to either use ICT themselves or create content with ICT but assigns them the role of consumers of her ICT use. With no signs that her students use ICT themselves, her ICT use in the classroom corresponds, at best, to the first level (access) of the digital divide. However, whether her ICT use (mostly for sharing information) could be regarded as giving students access to ICT is debatable given that her students are only observers in these situations. According to Participant 4, this type of ICT use in teaching has been agreed upon with her colleagues:

“There are two experienced colleagues, we have agreed that basically we do this [not use ICT in the classroom] and they are, for example, sometimes I give thirty to sixty expressions in Estonian-English during the lesson and they say that the child has to write them with his/her hand and then, for example, it takes already quite a large part of this class time. That, yes, there is definitely [times] when I don’t use it.”

As example 29 shows, Participant 4 is following the agreement made with two more experienced colleagues regarding not using ICT during classes. She explained that the lack of time during classes does not allow them to use ICT in the classroom. At the same time, this lack of time derives directly from the teaching methods used in the classroom. This explanation and agreement reflect her principles regarding the use of ICT in the classroom (see example 9), where she referred to her colleagues.

Participant 5 highlighted the use of ICT during her classes:

“Absolutely different programmes as well […] I record movies that I use in the classes […] I always have video links on my slides, that are for example on YouTube or on my own computer. Then there are workbook exercises that we do or some other exercises or other references to some sources”

“There was this very cool site for simulations online that simulated exactly these materials related to chemistry. To see how some molecules or atoms move, for example.”

Participant 5 describes her practices with excitement and no hesitation when it comes to providing specific examples. Although most of these examples reflect her use of ICT, a few illustrate her students’ use of ICT (“workbook exercises”, “other exercises”) and, in some cases, it concludes that students create their own simulations and modules. Therefore, her practices address mostly the first level (access) of the digital divide, although level two (skills) is partly relevant as well. At the same time, her attitude towards ICT use in the classroom (see examples 12–13) is more promising compared to her practices in integrating ICT.

Participant 6 uses ICT mainly to show something to children and is the one using ICT:

“If there is a need to find something or I don’t bother to explain myself, then I look for the video and show it to children […] I find that when a teacher wants to use [ICT], then it should be used as little as possible and as much as needed. As is with everything […] I could show some videos and sometimes, when taking a new topic, I do show, perhaps some teacher maybe explains a little differently, then I explain, but mostly it goes to the notebook, solving exercises in the notebook.”

Her practices reflect a rather distant attitude (“as little as possible”, “mostly it goes to the notebook”) when it comes to the use of ICT in the classroom, aligning with her perception of ICT use as well (see examples 14–16). Therefore, although some ICT use occurs during the classes, it is rather modest and only addresses the first level (access) of the digital divide. Yet, again, given that students are in the role of passive observers, it is debatable whether they access ICT or not.

Participant 7 listed several applications and databases he uses in his teaching:

“Then YouTube a lot, I create learning videos myself […] I prefer Google Meet […] those who are at home or ill, then I put a camera up in the classroom towards the board. Then those at home can also take part in the class.”

“I also use quite a lot of different databases. I teach this kind of special subject, bio-informatics […] I gave some worksheets, where they had to mess around with databases and then finally see or understand how these databases work.”

“At the end of the week, I leave them [students] a Moodle test on that topic.”

As the examples illustrate, Participant 7′s use of ICT varies, from creating learning videos to making students work with databases. In addition, he voluntarily arranges his classes to allow students who are not able to attend the class to take part if possible—this is done while contact learning is in force (instead of distance learning or emergency remote learning). His practices address mostly levels two (skills) and three (benefits) of the digital divide. The latter is visible in his effort to help his students understand how databases work and how they can work with a database.

Participant 8 described his ICT use in teaching as follows:

“I mainly use audio-video files, right, mainly listening exercises […] then I have used these different, so-called, how to say, quizzes or test-creation environments like Quizzizz.”

“There are these kinds of online tests and exercises. I have also used them to some extent.”

These examples reveal that his practices include his own use of ICT while also allowing students to use ICT with predetermined content (quizzes, test-creation environments, online exercises). Interestingly, his attitude towards ICT use (see example 19) gives the impression of a more varied use of ICT in his everyday teaching than what he actually described doing (see examples 36–37).

Two main types of practices emerge from teachers’ everyday, habitual use of ICT in the classroom. First, all the interviewed teachers use ICT in one way or another to convey information to students, in the form of slides, videos and websites with materials, among others. Second, some teachers integrate ICT into their classes in a way that allows students to use ICT in a predetermined manner. For instance, pre-filled tests, quizzes and exercises for a specific topic are somewhat predetermined by the teacher and serve the purpose the teacher has given them.

However, a third type of ICT integration in everyday classrooms was less visible. This type of use enables students to create their own content with ICT and choose specific tools and programmes to do so. Instead of students learning specific skills (e.g., filling in a test, answering workbook questions, etc.), this gives students transferable skills that can benefit them later in life (e.g., working with databases, knowing which software to use to create videos and how, etc.).

From the perspective of students, two types of practices in teachers’ everyday use of ICT in the classroom can be distinguished. On the one hand, some practices treat students as passive learners who have to “consume” or observe their teachers’ ICT use. These practices may involve showing students something or asking them to fill in a predetermined test or workbook exercise—in other words, activities that are decided and restricted by the teacher. On the other hand, other practices treat students as active learners who can create their own content with ICT and can decide how and what is to be used. These practices include students making short films or videos themselves with the tools and software they choose or finding solutions with the help of ICT. Unfortunately, these practices seem to be less common among teachers.

5.3. How Do Teachers Describe Their Role in Preparing Young People for Adult Life in the Digital Age?

As ICT changes education and learning, the question arises of how teachers make sense of their role in an era when knowledge can be obtained without them and how one can learn without leaving one’s home. In other words, how do teachers describe their role in preparing their students for adult life in the digital age?

Participant 1 considered ICT to have changed the role of teachers:

“In my opinion, in general, the role of the teacher has changed a lot, very clearly, through ICT in the sense that since the amount of information is simply much greater, a very big shift has taken place among teachers from an encyclopaedic knowledge where the teacher must be the one, who, so to speak, passes it [information] on to the fact that the teacher directs the students more clearly and more and more to find information on their own, to take a critical view of this information and so on.”

As example 38 shows, Participant 1 acknowledged the changes that ICT has generated regarding the role of teachers. With the shift towards directing students to find the answers on their own (rather than providing them with the knowledge), the methods of learning and teaching can be expected to change as well, allowing students to create content and their own ways of making sense of the world. This notion of a shift is also reflected in his attitude (see examples 1–2) and his practices (see examples 20–21).

Participant 2 sees the role of the education system and teachers as regulating what is taught and how regarding ICT. As she explained, it is the task of the education system to prepare a competent workforce for the future:

“But through education, education is the key, definitely education is the key, ironically. And education could also be the one that maybe filters what and how much [is taught]. It could actually be something like, I think that if in ten years we have incompetent people, then we still have to look at education. Taking this responsibility as a teacher.”

Participant 2 reflects on her role as a teacher more broadly than Participant 1, comparing it to the role of the educational system as both (the system and the actors in it) are responsible for preparing students adequately for their adult life. Juxtaposing her understanding of the role of teachers and her notion that teachers are afraid of ICT (see example 4) reveals a gap, perhaps even a conflict, when preparing young people for adult life in the digital age. Even if teachers avoid using ICT, it is their responsibility to equip their students with the necessary skills, attitudes and knowledge.

Participant 3 considers that the role of teachers and schools in general is to promote the reasonable and effective use of ICT:

“I think maybe the same as what we talked about, to teach how it would be a reasonable work tool. If we show perhaps with some other means how to use it sensibly, well—once, it was the topic of the smartphone, to show students how the smartphone is an effective work tool, then in fact it should be expanded like everywhere else. To talk about this question, under what conditions, how to choose the right software. How do you look at these conditions? Everything has to be taught, but does every teacher have to do it now? Well, every teacher can share his/her experience, because everyone uses different ones.”

She added that schools must teach the use of ICT as it is becoming an inevitable part of everyday life:

“That it is a matter of teaching, but it seems to me that just as the corona era brought this digital thing along very quickly, I think that if we, now, this will happen now, life will change in a different way, that we have to organise life in a different way, then also these topics of e-services and e-participation become very relevant, so that it will inevitably come into school life and it must then be taught.”

Interestingly, her understanding of teachers’ role corresponds to the third level (benefits) of the digital divide, or more precisely, what is needed to close this divide (“a reasonable work tool”, “effective work tool”). While her attitude (see example 6) somewhat aligns with this understanding of the role of teachers, she also called on teachers to be critical (see example 7) in choosing what to integrate into the classroom and why. In addition, her everyday practices only partly echo her understanding of the role of teachers in this regard (see example 25).

Participant 4 reported that she has not taken any role when it comes to preparing young people for the digital age:

“To be honest, I have never seen a lecture or heard anything about the fact. As much as my life wisdom says, that’s it, and that’s all. Life experience. I myself haven’t done anything to research more what I could do, how I could help the children on this topic [the use of ICT], I haven’t done that, no.”

Interestingly, examples 26–28 illustrate her perception that she uses many different materials with ICT in the classroom, yet she received the question about her role with some surprise. This might indicate that she has not yet thought through or put her use of ICT in the classroom in the wider context of why, how and when ICT should be used in the classroom.

In contrast, like Participant 3, Participant 5 highlighted the importance of the purposeful use of ICT:

“Precisely the purposeful use, for how long and for what it is reasonable, but precisely skilful [use] perhaps, how to use these tools to create something, so to speak, or also in terms of work or in terms of studies. I think that a large part of it definitely comes from school, because parents often specialise in a specific job and they may not have the skills or knowledge or the time and resources to teach and guide their children. Maybe this side of knowledge and such skills can come easily from the school.”

The role that Participant 5 assigns to teachers reflects a clear need to teach the reasonable and skilful use of ICT to students, addressing the third level (benefits) of the digital divide. Similar to Participant 2, her everyday practices echo a more modest approach to ICT. In her understanding of the role of teachers, the focus is on students’ use of ICT, whereas in the actual classroom, her ICT use is more visible than that of her students.

Participant 6 sees her role and that of school in general as follows:

“We have to teach them how to help themselves in terms of how to search for material, and these computer lessons are for that and subject lessons, if you need to use them, how to enter and search in the search [engine]. And then you can find the right one from there.”

Compared to others, Participant 6 believes that it is the computer lessons that should foster the ICT skills and knowledge necessary for students in their future lives. At the same time, this view is rather instrumental, concentrating on searching for the correct information. Interestingly, only Participant 6 highlighted the importance of students’ homes in teaching them how to learn with the help of ICT:

“We can teach and learn if there is a will and the home also supports and demands it. But, well, for some reason, it is believed that the school is an upbringing institution. It is not, we are an educational institution. We can teach to learn, we can also teach to use, right, these things and to help ourselves, but the main focus should still come from home.”

As examples 44–45 indicate, the participant does not feel that she has a role to play in developing students’ ICT skills and attitudes. She stresses the general skill that can, at least to some degree, be transferred to the context of using ICT.

Participant 7 highlights the practicalities of the use of ICT:

“One of the most important things about it is to show what are the practical possibilities, so to speak. Everyone knows how to take some Instagram pictures and put the hashtag “this kind of me here”, but, for example, making automated entries in Word based on the APA system, it’s a completely different story.”

He sees teachers’ role in this as that of mediators:

“Let’s say the first infatuation has passed and people have realised that in the world of digital tools and ICT in general, they [devices] alone do not carry themselves there, they are still only tools. And if there is no person next to it, then there is no development. It’s like everybody’s talking, digital tools would be like a miracle, it’s just virtual like a book, let’s say you can have a biology textbook next to you, you can read it. But when you discuss it with the teacher, do some work based on this. There is a lack of interactivity, real interactivity is missing. Then this development doesn’t happen. It’s like, just like the theory of evolution. It’s like a person developed a little with a book, [whereas] a person, a book and a teacher developed twice as much.”

Like his attitudes (see examples 17–18) and practices (33–35), his understanding of the role of teachers in preparing young people for adult life in the digital age focuses on the way ICT is used as a means to achieve something else. As he argues, what matters is not the use of ICT but rather what ICT is used for. This addresses the third level (benefits) of the digital divide and the ways that students can be given the means to benefit from the use of ICT in their everyday lives.

Participant 8 believes that some subjects and, therefore, teachers have a larger role to play in preparing young people for adult life in the digital age:

“It depends on the teacher, it might even be physical education or carpentry. But I think mainly social studies, languages, certainly the class teacher has a big part.”

Interestingly, Participant 8 assigns specific subject teachers (e.g., “social studies”) a larger role in preparing young people for adult life in the digital age than others (“might be even physical education”).

Teachers thus experience their role in preparing young people for adult life in the digital age as important, with some exceptions. The role that teachers see for themselves is experienced and described on a larger scale and as having more importance than their everyday practices would suggest. This is especially visible when comparing how teachers describe their role (as rather important) with their everyday practices (which are fairly monotonous, with some exceptions). The importance of their role as they describe it is not reflected in the practices they report.

6. General Discussion and Conclusions

As the results of the study indicate, teachers in Estonia describe their role in preparing young people for adult life in the digital age as important and evolving given that the field of education itself is changing and will continue to do so [6,8,65,66]. A rather positive and balanced attitude towards ICT use in daily teaching predominates among teachers, with a few exceptions. Nevertheless, when focusing on teachers’ everyday practices, a different image appears as most ICT use in the classroom tends to be monological, placing the students in a passive role, where they tend to “consume” their teachers’ ICT use. This finding is in line with those of PISA 2018 [30], which found that students’ role in using ICT in school is primarily passive. There are still some exceptions, at least in the present study, with teachers encouraging students to create content and/or learn skills and competencies that they might need in the future. Yet, this is a strong minority. At the same time, as PISA 2018 [30] demonstrated, students whose teacher used technology or used it together with the learner had better results than students whose teacher had left them alone with the technology, pointing to a lack of didactics that does not allow ICT to be used in the best possible manner.

The more positive and supportive attitude towards ICT use in everyday teaching could be explained on the one hand by the fact that teachers perceive the public’s expectations that education and teachers use and integrate ICT into their everyday teaching, regardless of the study subject. This is somewhat echoed by teachers who feel that ICT is being pushed on them. The inconsistency between attitudes, roles and practices could also be explained considering that Estonian teachers tend to have students do their homework with ICT rather than using devices in the classroom, thus putting the onus on the household to teach them the necessary ICT skills and competencies [30].

Teachers’ everyday practices and habitual use of ICT in the classroom raise the question of how well teachers in Estonia are addressing the digital divide, especially the third level, which relates to the tangible outcomes and benefits derived from ICT access and use [50,52]. The practices of the eight Estonian teachers seem to vary greatly here, with the majority focusing only on providing some ICT access to their students and working on specific skills. Most of these practices fail to illustrate how these skills could be put to use outside of school life and how students could reap the benefits of their ICT use. Therefore, most of the students are not trained to use ICT successfully and beneficially in their everyday lives. On a more positive note, as the PISA 2018 results [30] emphasise, an increase in the use of all the digital possibilities in education is expected in the coming years, which would place students in an active role in using ICT during the classes. This need is underlined by the present study.

A discussion is needed on whether teachers from different fields of study use ICT somehow more or less. While there might be some subjects (e.g., English language) where the use of ICT is easier as there is more educational content available in that language or the platforms themselves are in a suitable language, it does not determine the use of ICT in that specific subject. As the teachers’ use of ICT illustrated, history and social science teachers are using ICT more and in a more versatile manner compared to English teachers. Although this comparison might reveal the amount of educational content available in each subject, it also does not define the manner in which ICT is integrated in the classroom.

Inherent to qualitative research is the emphasis on meaning-making and the lived experiences of respondents [67], while avoiding making any generalizations as data gathered and analysed in a qualitative manner do not allow that. While this might seem a limitation to a qualitative study, it nevertheless provides researchers with a rich understanding of the perspective of the subjects [67] that the quantitative study manner might not be able to provide.

One limitation to keep in mind when interpreting the results is the context of the research questions. As emphasised earlier, only the practices implemented during a class taught in the school were examined. Teachers may use other practices when preparing a class, communicating with parents, colleagues or students outside class time, planning homework for students or evaluating it. Therefore, some of the very creative practices that actively involve students might have been left out, affecting the results. Nevertheless, as the focus of the study is ICT use in the classroom—which is mediated by the teacher—this distinction was essential to achieving the research objective.

The particular context of schools after the emergency remote learning and teaching or distance-learning period must also be acknowledged. By the time schools were able to return to contact learning, teachers had experienced ICT saturation as one of the participants in the study revealed. This may have changed their habitual practices, reducing their ICT use in the classroom. The opposite could be argued here also as emergency remote teaching and learning and distance learning have increased teachers’ skills in ICT use. In both cases, the regular use of ICT is affected.

In addition, the findings of the present article do not offer any context regarding the structural characteristics influencing the use of ICT in education in Estonia. This includes both students’ and teachers’ access to ICT devices and software, access to high-quality Internet and necessary measures to support teachers’ competencies in integrating ICT into learning. With its long history of digitalising education, Estonia has equipped schools quite well [68]. In 2020, 99% of students in upper-secondary education (grades 10–12) and 90% of students in primary and lower-secondary education (grades 1–9) attended a school equipped with ICT devices and connections [69]. Digital skills have been taught throughout general education (grades 1–12) since 2011 as a general competence [70,71].

The present article also has some notable strengths. The participants involved in the study form a versatile group that varies in terms of experience, school type, attitudes, practices and described roles. This allows us to shed light on the differences among teachers when it comes to preparing students for adult life in the digital age. Another strength is the use of DigiGen data, which was gathered based on a methodology developed by an international group of researchers The data gathered within the DigiGen project are rich, multifaceted and thorough and can be used in diverse ways and for various studies.

In future research, it would be valuable to connect the experiences of students with the practices and understandings of their teachers. This comparison would allow us to spotlight the gaps, if any, between teachers’ practices and students’ needs or expectations. Another implication for further studies would be to compare the ICT use of those teachers who received their professional training before ICT was commonly used with teachers who received their training later when ICT was already commonly used. This would allow us to draw out the differences in the use of ICT between the two groups.