GRADE 11 EDUCATORS’ DIGITAL LITERACY PRACTICES AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION IN CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION
Abstract
Digital literacy is increasingly essential for effective teaching in a rapidly evolving digital
education landscape, yet many teachers continue to struggle with integrating technology
meaningfully into their classroom practice. This paper explored how Grade 11 teachers’
digital literacy practices influence their use of technology in the learning environment, with
specific attention to the gap between the basic digital skills teachers possess and the
more advanced competencies needed for effective technology integration. Although
digital tools are becoming more available in South African schools, teachers’ capacity to
use them in pedagogically purposeful ways remains uneven, making it important to
understand the factors shaping their digital literacy practices. Guided by the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ICT Competency
Framework for Teachers (ICT CFT), the paper employed a qualitative research design
within an interpretivist paradigm to examine teachers’ lived experiences with digital tools.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six purposively selected Grade 11
teachers from two high schools in the Gauteng West District. Findings indicate that
teachers tend to understand digital literacy in terms of basic operational tasks such as
typing, searching the internet, and preparing presentation slides. Their ability to integrate
technology meaningfully was strongly shaped by unequal access to devices,
infrastructure challenges, and the rapid pace of technological change. Teachers in betterresourced
schools demonstrated broader digital literacy practices, while those in underresourced
schools relied more heavily on traditional teaching methods. Overall, the paper
illustrates how both individual competencies and contextual conditions shape teachers’
digital literacy practices and their capacity for technology-enhanced teaching.
Keywords: classroom practices; digital literacy; ICT-CFT; technology; teaching
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