I am currently teaching Grade 1/2 French Immersion at Macaulay Elementary and within my classroom I use technology daily in order to help support my students. When addressing what is the reality of educational technology in my context, I believe that technology continues to evolve and that this reality is constantly changing. My goal throughout this program is to help teachers use technology more.


At a district level, I am grateful to have access to numerous tech resources. My district for example, even has a digital resource section with French Immersion specific resources. These resources are accessible; however, a limit I have noticed is that there are many teachers who do not know of the resources or how to use them. Therefore, I believe a communal drive and instruction sessions would be beneficial. As someone, who is passionate about technology and willing to help fellow teachers, I know that other teachers within my school have started to use tech more as I share resources. Therefore the benefits grow as they learn new opportunities.

There is a slight lack in accessing devices right now as the district replaces old devices with new laptops. I am awaiting my district computer, but luckily my classroom does have access to some IPad’s. My hope is that in the near future each student will be able to have one assigned to them to use.

Here are just some digital resources to name a few that I use within my class to support French Language Learning. I continue to discovering new resources, as technology continues to grow.

For instance, this year I have decided to learn the new Digital Portfolio for SD61. I have already started to learn about this system and so far I have found it to be a great method where I am able to showcase a journey of learning, all while communicating with families daily. The digital portfolio is effective in demonstrating the process over time through videos, photos and many other resources. I believe that it helps build children’s confidence to showcase their work, which ultimately makes the work meaningful and something they are proud of. The benefits of technology range, but in terms of digital portfolio here are some benefits I have noticed:

  • Oral French skills develop as they are sharing their knowledge through videos and pictures.
  • In the early years, they start to learn basic digital technology.
  • They are motivated to share their work and make improvements when looking back on their work.

Other common tools that I use are the projector, the document camera and online videos. With these there are many benefits, but specifically related to French, students are able to listen to different accents of French speaking people.  Thus, different accents expose children to language, promote diversity and help them develop their French skills.

I am looking forward to continue gaining access and information on strategies that best support language acquisition specifically in a French Immersion context. As a French Immersion team at my school, I wish to help support teachers with technology and eventually want to expand these resources district wide to make it more accessible for all teachers. So instead of teachers feeling overwhelmed by learning technology, it can be more “entangled pedagogy” (Fawns, 2022).