The digitalisation of Swedish teaching from a didactic perspective

The purpose of this qualitative interview study is to highlight the differences in Swedish teaching before and after digitalisation in school. The study deals with teachers’ experiences of the impact of digitalisation on their Swedish teaching. The results are based on the teachers’ experiences of how they have changed the teaching of Swedish from a didactic perspective towards a more design-theoretic and multimodal teaching using the digital tools and teaching aids. The study has given me new knowledge about the didactic and design-theoretic impact of digitalisation on Swedish education. I have also been inspired by all the possibilities that exist to vary my teaching with the help of the digital tools and teaching aids, which I will greatly benefit from in my work as a teacher. Six primary teachers from two different schools in the same municipality participated in the study. The interviewed teachers have been active before and after digitalisation, which allows them to make comparisons between the time before and after digitalisation. The results of the survey show that the interviewed teachers have both positive and negative experiences of Swedish teaching from the time before as well as after digitalisation with a few exceptions. However, most teachers are positive about digitalisation and see the most advantages in it. The teachers in the study prefer a mixture of information channels in their teaching with digital tools, digital teaching aids, textbooks, digital supplements to textbooks and other information channels according to multimodal theory. They thought that they have succeeded well with the implementation of the digital tools in their teaching and that they have received sufficient training to be able to manage and implement the tools in the teaching. However, the teacher training courses do not seem to keep up with the digital development because according to studies, most students feel that they have received too little information and communication technology training to be able to use and implement the digital tools in their teaching. The teachers training programs thus need to be updated in order to meet the students’ needs for education. Keywords: Digitalisation; Swedish language teaching; digitalization strategy; digital tools; design theory, primary teachers