To answer these questions, the Centre national d'étude des systèmes scolaires (Cnesco) has mobilized a dozen researchers.

The result of two years of work, this work This two-year study, of unprecedented scope, focuses on the use of digital technology in four school subjects (French, mathematics, foreign languages, geography) and on its effects on specific tasks (taking notes, searching for information, cooperating, learning at a distance, etc.).

The second objective of this dossier is to examine the following hypothesis: "if there has been no digital revolution in schools, it is because digital tools do not improve learning. (...) When we take a closer look, we see above all diverse landscapes of teachers of different disciplines using different digital tools, for different pedagogical functions, and only for certain activities; other activities are carried out without these tools. Some tools are effective with students who are advanced in the learning concerned, others with beginners; some tools improve learning when used individually, others when used in groups. In short, when we look closely, we can see a little better the multiple contributions and limitations of digital technology.

The use of digital technology in the classroom: a contrasted landscape according to the disciplines

The primary reason for use is to prepare lessons, well before use in the classroom with students

• Digital textbooks are perceived a priori as more reliable and relevant than resources found on the Web. Teachers' expectations of the content and tools in digital textbooks are high, well beyond the simple paper textbook presented in pdf format.
• The Interactive Digital Board (IDB) has entered the classrooms as a practical and appreciated tool, most often used as a presentation tool for the subject. It has not led to a renewal of pedagogical practices, although it offers truly new possibilities.
• Laptops and tablets: Equipping every student with a laptop or tablet can produce positive, often modest effects, but it does not in itself produce a new way of teaching and learning. The significant changes observed are local.
• The Internet and search engines profoundly affect documentary research, making it more technically easy and (much) more intellectually demanding. The other school activities are (comparatively) relatively little impacted. The very uncontrolled editorial functioning of the Web represents above all a new challenge for the training of young people (and the not so young).
• Reading and writing on digital media: Students read, a lot, but not the same texts or in the same way as previous generations. These changes in reading practices are not specific to young people. Digital reading is more demanding and requires the development of new skills.
• Games and videos for learning
• Digital projection tools facilitate the use of videos in the classroom, whether shown by the teacher or viewed individually by each student. Video games and serious games occupy very little space in classrooms today.
• Flipped classrooms, collaborative devices: Digital tools are often used by people who engage in "pedagogical innovations" such as flipped classrooms or collaborative learning.
• Educational robotics, Scratch, programming initiation: Introduction to programming is old, but it is regularly renewed, by educational robotics and new programming languages. However, it is not always clear whether it is an objective or a means of teaching.

Technological innovation does not necessarily rhyme with pedagogical innovation

It is not because we introduce a technology qualified as innovative in an education or training context that the practice is renewed and necessarily becomes innovative.

The process of appropriating digital tools

• Some works insist on the qualities of the tool itself: it must be (a) useful (allow for better teaching and/or learning) and perceived as useful by teachers and students, (b) usable (easy to use) and perceived as usable, (c) acceptable (compatible with the organization of time, space, tools, tasks, values and motivations of individuals and the characteristics of the institution in which they work).
• Other studies emphasize the importance of training, which is necessary to transform the way a tool is used and to understand its usefulness.
• Finally, others emphasize the collective/cultural dimension of appropriation. Individual appropriation is often doomed to failure, because teaching and learning practices are more social practices. Supporting and accompanying such collectives is a major and necessary challenge so that these collectives can integrate, adapt and adjust these practices in order to transform them into school practices.

Specific uses in French, mathematics, modern languages and geography

• In French, digital use is considered essential for learning acquisition for 8% of respondents, and 25% of teachers state that their digital use could be substituted for paper use. Another 25% say they use digital because they believe it is effective for learning. The authors of the distinguish two attitudes. "For those respondents who consider digital to be indispensable for the learning process, there is a strong correlation with the notion of efficiency (75%). The use of digital technology is therefore rather rational. On the other hand, for teachers who say that the use of digital technology in their scenario is not indispensable, there is no clear correlation with the notion of efficiency (35%). This would seem to be a paradoxical use of digital technology, since it is neither indispensable nor considered effective, yet it is used.
• Mathematics. Among the technologies used by teachers, 66% of teachers report using the calculator almost every class period, 45% of teachers report using dynamic geometry once or twice a month or more often, while 25% use it very rarely or never. Programming software is reported to be used frequently by 43% of teachers while other technologies, such as graphers, formal calculation, exercisers etc. are reported to be used very rarely by more than 65% of teachers. "Despite the growing availability of digital tools for mathematics teachers, their integration is still limited in most classrooms, whether in middle or high school.
• "It is in the teaching of modern languages that these tools are most used, especially for listening and comprehension tasks. Digital technology also modifies reading and comprehension tasks. It also allows students to multiply the opportunities to interact orally in foreign languages. "The major advantage of digital tools for language teaching and learning is that they make the boundaries between language skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking) particularly permeable.
• Geography: Cartographic practices occupy an important place in the teaching of geography. Digital information tools (Google Earth, Geoportail) transform geography as a field of study and knowledge: geography becomes an instrumented discipline. The objects of teaching are thus potentially transformed in geography as a school discipline, it is perhaps even one of the school disciplines most affected by digital technology with music education. More broadly, the new tools in geography are transforming our relationship to the world. They raise questions about society that go beyond the discipline of geography

Specific contributions and limitations of the pedagogical functions

• With digital tools, teachers can present information, while students can read and understand a text, learn to read, listen to an audio document, listen to an audio text, watch/read a multimedia document, watch a video, an animation and take notes.
• When they lack situational knowledge, students can use digital tools to ask questions, ask for help, search for information and solve problems. They can also practice, play, and digital tools are meant to motivate them. When they cannot afford to physically visit a school, they can cooperate and learn remotely in digital environments.
• Teachers can benefit from the help of digital tools to assess students' performance but also to monitor their progress and analyze their difficulties, while students can self-assess thanks to these tools.
• Digital tools can also support very open activities: creating a technical object, a pictorial or sound work, producing a text, a document, alone or with others, programming, discovering abstract concepts, bringing out ideas, developing creativity or even experimenting.

The authors of the report review eleven uses of digital tools

• Using digital technology to motivate students
• The search for information
• Understanding complex phenomena in science
• Listening to audio documents
• Simulation of a complex or difficult to access situation
• Collaborative writing
• Watching videos and animations to understand: the illusion of ease I. Learning by playing: not so simple
• Receiving elaborate immediate feedback: a good idea... difficult to implement
• Designing (new) objects
• Learn programming and develop creativity
• Articulation of distance learning and classroom activities

Great contributions and new requirements for teachers and students alike

If the results are not as positive as we would like, "it is probably because designing a digital tool for learning is very demanding. Our skills in designing paper-based materials are often of little help. For students, these new digital resources are mostly just as demanding (sometimes without appearing to be): they require more attention and new skills."

Nathalie Mons, André Tricot, Jean-François Chesné and Hugo Botton also looked at the way in which digital technology intervenes in the school-family relationship and at the possible contributions of its use outside the classroom to school learning. They have highlighted significant territorial inequalities in computer equipment and Internet connections, particularly in elementary school.

Digital technology can change the relationship of students to knowledge and to school, but it does not change the status of knowledge or of school

• Some of the contributions of digital in education are major. " Certain aspects of teaching and learning are profoundly transformed and improved by digital technology: documentary research, understanding complex phenomena in science, learning gestures or movements, listening to audio documents, simulating a complex or difficult situation, collaborative writing, are examples among many others."
• In some areas, the contributions of digital technology are minor: " Digital technology often does not seem to fundamentally modify school knowledge (which evolves less quickly than scholarly knowledge), nor does it change the relationship of students to this knowledge, nor the practices of disciplinary teaching. It is therefore hardly surprising that digital technology, on which we were banking, still seems far from having reduced social, gender and territorial inequalities.
• In still other areas, the contributions of digital technology are moderate or poorly known: " Some pedagogical functions benefit moderately (on average) from digital: watching videos and animations to understand, playing, receiving elaborate immediate feedback, designing (new) objects. These moderate average effects hide great successes and bitter failures, which are probably linked (among other things) to a lack of skills and means among designers: we must absolutely progress in the design of these tools. For other pedagogical functions, we do not yet know what the possible added value is: this is the case for programming and the development of creativity. Nor do we yet know what effects the introduction of artificial intelligence in digital tools for school use has and will have on teachers and students.

Key figures

• In 2019, elementary school students averaged 12.5 per computer station.
• The 20% of students in the best-equipped schools had one computer for every 3.7 students, compared with one computer for every 32.9 students in the 20% of students in the worst-equipped schools.
• In 2019, one in four schoolchildren had access to fiber in their school. This proportion varies from 14% in rural areas to over 40% in the Paris metropolitan area.
• 96% of middle school math teachers (and 97% in high school) report that their students use a digital tool in class every week or once or twice a month, including the calculator (Cnesco, 2019).
• When calculators are not taken into account, these practices are still widely shared by 75% of middle school teachers (and 78% of high school teachers).
• 43% of students in France have a low or very low level of performance in digital literacy.

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