The role of digital technologies in lives and learning: Dilemmas and potentials for migrant students and schools

The Ukrainian refugee children who arrived in Denmark, found themselves in a highly digitalized school
environment, where learning materials and activities are organized around so-called learning platforms.
Additionally, tools for translation, writing and content-searching are widely available, and the result is,
that teaching and learning in the reception classes can be seen as a series of practices, that are neither
analog nor digital but rather an entanglement of the two (Fawns, 2022).
Theoretical framework, methodology and findings
However, this digitalization raises both ethical, pedagogical and linguistic issues: Using learning
platforms and making for-profit and non-educational technologies an integrated part of teaching and
learning can be problematic in a free, public school system (van Dijck, Poell & Waal 2018). From a
language pedagogical viewpoint, the often highly individualized digital learning activities pose a
challenge to language pedagogy, as language acquisition is linked to a communicating classroom. The
learning platforms can also introduce pedagogical practices for feedback not normally associated with
current pedagogical trends. At the same time, we also see that the access to just-in-time linguistic
support in the form of translation technologies enhances opportunities for active participation in teaching
activities and peer interaction. However, the use of automatic translation constitutes a practice that may
overlook linguistic and cultural aspects of translation and language acquisition (Lundtofte, Andersen &
Christensen, forthcoming).
Digital technologies also provide the students in our study with a unique possibility of continuing their
Ukrainian education, as many of them participated in online education provided by the Ukrainian
government. The initial purpose of the online-school was to make sure the students were able to follow a
Ukrainian curriculum and hence facilitate their return to the Ukrainian school system. However, the
students who participate in Danish and Ukrainian schooling experience long school days and conflicting
demands from two very different school systems, and they are faced with questions regarding their
investment in both language and subject learning in the new country (Christensen, Kapustian & Nielsen,
forthcoming).
Relevance to Nordic educational research
In our presentation we will explore the dilemmas and potentials regarding the observed practices in our
study and we will discuss these in the light of teaching and learning for migrant students and more
overarching pedagogical discussions regarding the use of digital technologies in schools