IDEAL Future Work Package 2 Report

25 In some cases those interviewed describe how technology projects provide alternative learning experiences that engage student and also provide opportunities for students to collaboratively learn rather than teachers leading the learning doing little technology projects with them. Yeah, so it is great. They love the hands on learning. They like to get into it very quickly (IE P4) learning and communication with school - Zoom and language learning platforms. (LV, 6 years as school principal and 25 years as educator ) 5.2.3 Reducing professional workload Another subtheme that emerged from the analysis was professional workload. Many of those interviewed recognised the fact that technology can save them time particularly for duties in planning, preparation of material and assessment and feedback. However interestingly Time is also a challenge that was identified by many later in the report. One of the main areas in which workload was reduced was grading, where by online quizzes automatically grade and speak to text where audio feedback can be provided. In addition the use of technology for administration of records and grades was felt to be more efficient. The digital tool allows teachers to align content and track learning in other subjects. (LV 24 Future teacher with teaching experience ) Digitised tests also save teachers time, as they are often easier to check and mark. (LV 6 In-service teacher with 6 years of experience) Speech to text is such a time saver. In terms of giving students feedback on work that they submit through Google Classroom, there's an app that's embedded into Google Classroom called Mode, where you can give them like an audio feedback rather than you typing out a feedback. (IE P3) It saves you so much time as you can correcting it automatically for you. It's. And you instantly have like data results and like see how they're getting on and you can have a quick glance even with cahoots (IE P7) Again speech to text and were deemed to be useful during planning and creating lessons as well as content creation tools and AI. It's a huge learning tool that we can use as teachers when, when teaching and when planning lesson. (IE P13) AI definitely lightens the load for an awful lot of people, and it will help a lot of people, I think in and it is helping it, we use it all the time for UM writing blurbs or presentations or that. (IE PP8) Generally participants recognised that digital learning technologies offered potential to support students and teachers in a variety of different aspects of their learning and work. Conversely they also described the challenges they encountered in their experiences of engaging with digital learning. 5.3 Challenges of digital learning Despite the positive discussions that emerged in the interviews, participants spoke at length of the challenges they faced. These issues ranged from broader contextual issues, to practice based issues Broader contextual issues were with regard to access to technology, finance and time constraints as well as the pace of change. Other challenges interviewees described were through experiences and interaction with others or example the lack of critical use of technology, resistance to change, the pace of change of technology often impacted individuals mindset.