Conference Agenda

In the last decade, there has been a significant focus on the platformisation of education, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic led educational institutions across the globe to utilise a variety of platform-based tools to enable remote learning. The use of virtual learning and other platforms has become a crucial aspect of contemporary education; recognising that digital access is no longer a luxury but a necessity if a student is to have equal opportunity to high-quality education, presents both new opportunities and challenges for schools,

The use of digital platforms, defined as ‘programmable digital architecture designed to organise interactions between users’ (Van Dijck & Poell, 2018, p. 4), has become central to supporting administrative, pedagogical, and communicative functions of schools worldwide (Williamson, 2017). Pandemic-related school closures played a critical role in facilitating remote education (Parkin et al., 2020) and enabling teacher-student and teacher-parent interactions (Cumbo et al., 2021). This led to increased educational inequalities, since pupils from better-off families not only had better digital access but their parents reported feeling more able to support them (Andrew et al., 2020). This highlights that the spectrum of digital inclusion (or exclusion) is neither binary nor static and different levels of inequalities are commonly recognised relating to differentiating degrees of digital access, literacy, and capacity to translate internet access into positive offline outcomes (van Deursen & Helsper, 2015).

Despite the increased use of digital platforms, research that critically explores how they are reshaping school practices and the implications this has for students and families is still surprisingly limited (Pluim & Gard, 2018; Williamson, 2016). This research aims to address the gap by adopting a critical platform gaze (Decuypere et al., 2021), an analytical stance that approaches platforms not as neutral ‘digital tools’ but as connective artefacts informed by the active interactions between individuals and the technology. It explores the opportunities as well as the challenges associated with school platformisation in recognition of UNICEF’s (2021) call for digital inclusion to be seen as the cornerstone to ensuring social justice and equitable life chances for every child. Thus, the research questions are:

1. How have digital platforms become a primary ‘space’ for schools’ post-pandemic operations?

1. What are the short and long-term opportunities and challenges platformisation can create for educators, students and parents/carers.

1. What does digital exclusion look like and what can schools do to address it?

This project provides relevant insights into the complexity of school platformisation and contributes to the theoretical development of critical platforms studies as a research field. Understanding the impact of the recent platformisation of schools on post-pandemic practices and the implications this can have in exacerbating digital inequalities is crucial to informing policy aimed at supporting schools and families. It provides an initial step towards creating a more digitally equitable society, which exemplifies UNESCO’s (2017) mandate that every learner matters and matters equally.

Primary school classrooms in Austrian – as across European and worldwide are characterized by a diverse student body (European Education and Culture Executive Agency (European Commission), 2023; Oberwimmer et al., 2021). As part of various diversity aspects to be taken into consideration in a classroom (Ainscow et al., 2010), studies show that pupils differ regarding their reading skills (Seifert et al., 2022). At the end of primary school 20% the of pupils in Austria leave the fourth grade as low-achieving readers (Schmich et al., 2023). Yet, reading competence is crucial, because it is the basis for acquiring knowledge and hence participation in society (Maitz et al., 2018).

On one hand, teachers have to deal with increasing diversity (Humphrey et al., 2006) and on the other hand, they have to teach fundamental reading skills, which are demanded by the national curriculum (Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung, 2023). Offering inclusive lessons, based on differentiation is one possible way of meeting this challenge. In differentiated approaches individual skills are recognized as basis for differentiation to foster students according to their needs and hence, expand their individual reading skills (Konrad, 2014). Within an inclusive classroom, differentiated material that allows students to work on the same topic, but on different reading levels is needed (Seifert et al., 2015).

In some cases, textbooks offer such differentiation (Wedenig, 2017). Otherwise, teachers need to use additional differentiated material or even differentiate materials themselves. Embedding differentiation in digital tools can significantly reduce the workload for teachers and also increase student motivation, as student-centered lessons as possible (Redecker & Punie, 2017). Besides, other well accepted elements for enhancing reading skills (e.g., vocabulary work (Schabmann et al., 2012), cooperative learning methods (Remache et al., 2019), reading strategies (Philipp, 2015), reading while listening (RWL) to audio files (Walter, 2018)) can also easily be implemented in digital tools. However, it is still unclear whether, to what extent and by what means (e.g. textbooks, digital tools) differentiation is currently being implanted in Austria classes and what gaps are being present.

The paper aims to close the gap and explores which elements are used and perceived as particularly beneficial in an inclusive setting to promote pupils reading skills and to facilitate knowledge acquisition. It also identifies success factors for reading didactics that focus more on the needs of individual pupils.

By employing a mixed methods approach (questionnaire, interviews and book analyses), this study aims to investigate (a) the extent to which Austria teachers utilize differentiated materials, (b) the factors causing teachers’ reliance on differentiated materials, (c) the methodologies employed by teachers in utilizing differentiated materials, (d) the presence of differentiation measures in the most common Austrian primary school textbooks, (e) the current utilization and purposes of digital tools and technologies in supporting reading didactics and (f) the elements that could facilitate differentiation for teachers, such as the use of digital tools.

In this paper, I examine tactile picture books designed for readers with vision impairments as a site for both developing and conceptualising tactile literacy. Tactile picture books designed for readers with vision impairments are far from new. Yvonne Eriksson takes 1784 as the starting point for her historical analysis - the year Valentin Haüy laid the foundations of what would go on to become the first institute for the education of blind children in Paris - yet she acknowledges that writing for blind readers existed as early as the 9^th century, citing Japanese relief prints conserved in Bucharest (Eriksson, 1998). Tactile picture books remain a global phenomenon to this day, with practitioners coming together to share their work in the now-biennial international ‘Typhlo and Tactus’ competition for tactile picture books, an organisation that also published its own guide, sharing the practices of many international practitioners in the field (Claudet, 2009). Across history and geography, tactile picture books are explicitly made to be felt, touched, and manipulated, relying on their materiality to convey their pictures and illustrations. Rather than being ‘pretty’ to look at, they are first and foremost books to be read with the hands, which calls for an embodied, rather than visual, approach to illustration (Bara, 2018; Claudet, 2019). In present-day Britain, tactile picture books are often a homemade affair, with charities distributing volunteer-made books, and practitioners making their own, often specially for and with specific students. These books are often made with particular aims in mind, such as developing pre-braille skills or working against tactile selectiveness. They also supposedly bolster language and literacy skills, as well as understanding and memory (Bara, 2018), whilst also allowing certain students to develop the tactile diagram skills they will need in future examinations (Norman, 2004). Nevertheless, tactile picture books remain under-researched, with the research that exists often narrowly focused on the ‘correct’ decoding of tactile images, ignoring the fact that these books are also designed to be pleasurable and bring enjoyment to their readers. Students are invited to physically engage with these books as a key part of their learning, and their teachers’ understandings of tactile literacy extend beyond simply the acquisition of braille.