how technology help us do homework

Mastering Homework and Study Skills: How Technology Can Help

How to use technology for homework – Technology has become an integral part of modern education.

This article aims to provide students with an understanding of how they can use technology to improve their homework and studying habits.

Table of Contents

Utilizing Online Resources

Discussion of online tutorials and educational websites: One of the biggest benefits of technology in education is its wide access to online resources.

Using online resources to supplement in-class learning: By using online resources to supplement in-class learning, students can take control of their education and focus on the areas where they need the most help.

Collaboration Tools

These tools make it easy to share documents, communicate with others, and collaborate on group projects.

Time Management and Organization

Apps and software for time management and task organization: From apps like Trello and Asana to software like Microsoft To-Do and Todoist, various tools are available to help students manage their time and stay organized.

They should also set reminders for themselves and break down large assignments into smaller tasks.

Digital Note-taking

These tools allow students to create and organize notes, add multimedia such as images and videos, and even convert handwriting to text.

Online Tutorials and Educational Websites

Supplementing in-class learning, conclusion – how to use technology for homework.

Technology can play a significant role in helping students improve their homework and studying habits .

This guide has provided an overview of some of the most useful technology tools and resources for students and tips and strategies for using them effectively.

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How to effectively use technology to maximize homework outcomes

“Teachers’ Use of Technology for School and Homework Assignments: 2018–19 First Look” .  This report was generated in response to the enormous role technology is, and will increasingly be, playing in providing remote learning opportunities for students, whether in supporting part-time “school based” education or temporarily replacing it altogether.  The provides data on the access and availability of computers, smartphones, and the Internet to students at home, the impact that students’ access to technology outside of school has on teachers’ homework assignments, and ways that teachers provide assistance to their students who have limited access to technology and the Internet outside of school.  The following are some of the more important findings.

Teacher Awareness of Home Computer Availability and Use:   Teachers are on the front line of interfacing with students about their access to computers and the Internet at home.  Yet, they often have inexact information in this area.  Teachers reported that they get information by doing surveys of students or parents (51 percent), talking to students or parents individually (84 percent), and developing a sense while working with students.  Yet, among all teachers, a little over one in five reported being very knowledgeable and one in two reported being somewhat knowledgeable about their students’ access to computers and the Internet at home. School Support for Access to Computers and Internet:   Only twenty-six percent of teachers reported that their students have district- or school-provided computers for students to take home on a long-term basis during the school year. Thirty-six percent of teachers reported that the teachers estimated the percentage of their students who have access to a computer at home, including district- or school-provided computers for students who take them home. About two-thirds of teachers estimated that 75 percent or more of their students have access to a computer at home. While computers and Internet service might exist in students’ households, computer availability for homework and the reliability of computer connections to the Internet can vary considerably. About a third (35 percent) of teachers estimated that their students’ home computers were very available for school assignments. Twenty-nine percent of teachers thought it very likely that their students’ home computers had reliable Internet access.

Access to Technology and Homework Assignments:   About half of the teachers reported that their students’ access to technology and the Internet outside of school has a moderate (28 percent) or large (20 percent) influence on the homework they assign to them.  About a fifth (19 percent) of teachers reported that they often assign technology-based homework and an additional 28 percent reported doing so sometimes. The teachers who assign technology-based homework, at least rarely, were asked the extent that their students have difficulty completing this type of homework because they are not familiar with how to use technology. 

Among the 98 percent of teachers whose students are given online or computerized assessments by the state, district, or school, 44 percent reported that their students were very prepared and 39 percent reported students to be somewhat prepared to use the technology required for these assessments.

The overall conclusions of this survey is that, while there have been successes along the way to integrating technology into education, there is a long way to go in terms of data systems, resources, accountability, and ongoing support to meet the new needs for remote learning.

Citation(s):  Gray, L., and Lewis, L. (2020). Teachers’ Use of Technology for School and Homework Assignments: 2018–19 (NCES 2020-048). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved [date] from https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2020048

Link:  https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2020/2020048.pdf

REALIZING THE PROMISE:

Leading up to the 75th anniversary of the UN General Assembly, this “Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all?” publication kicks off the Center for Universal Education’s first playbook in a series to help improve education around the world.

It is intended as an evidence-based tool for ministries of education, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, to adopt and more successfully invest in education technology.

While there is no single education initiative that will achieve the same results everywhere—as school systems differ in learners and educators, as well as in the availability and quality of materials and technologies—an important first step is understanding how technology is used given specific local contexts and needs.

The surveys in this playbook are designed to be adapted to collect this information from educators, learners, and school leaders and guide decisionmakers in expanding the use of technology.  

Introduction

While technology has disrupted most sectors of the economy and changed how we communicate, access information, work, and even play, its impact on schools, teaching, and learning has been much more limited. We believe that this limited impact is primarily due to technology being been used to replace analog tools, without much consideration given to playing to technology’s comparative advantages. These comparative advantages, relative to traditional “chalk-and-talk” classroom instruction, include helping to scale up standardized instruction, facilitate differentiated instruction, expand opportunities for practice, and increase student engagement. When schools use technology to enhance the work of educators and to improve the quality and quantity of educational content, learners will thrive.

Further, COVID-19 has laid bare that, in today’s environment where pandemics and the effects of climate change are likely to occur, schools cannot always provide in-person education—making the case for investing in education technology.

Here we argue for a simple yet surprisingly rare approach to education technology that seeks to:

• Understand the needs, infrastructure, and capacity of a school system—the diagnosis;
• Survey the best available evidence on interventions that match those conditions—the evidence; and
• Closely monitor the results of innovations before they are scaled up—the prognosis.

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The framework.

Our approach builds on a simple yet intuitive theoretical framework created two decades ago by two of the most prominent education researchers in the United States, David K. Cohen and Deborah Loewenberg Ball. They argue that what matters most to improve learning is the interactions among educators and learners around educational materials. We believe that the failed school-improvement efforts in the U.S. that motivated Cohen and Ball’s framework resemble the ed-tech reforms in much of the developing world to date in the lack of clarity improving the interactions between educators, learners, and the educational material. We build on their framework by adding parents as key agents that mediate the relationships between learners and educators and the material (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The instructional core

Adapted from Cohen and Ball (1999)

As the figure above suggests, ed-tech interventions can affect the instructional core in a myriad of ways. Yet, just because technology can do something, it does not mean it should. School systems in developing countries differ along many dimensions and each system is likely to have different needs for ed-tech interventions, as well as different infrastructure and capacity to enact such interventions.

The diagnosis:

How can school systems assess their needs and preparedness.

A useful first step for any school system to determine whether it should invest in education technology is to diagnose its:

• Specific needs to improve student learning (e.g., raising the average level of achievement, remediating gaps among low performers, and challenging high performers to develop higher-order skills);
• Infrastructure to adopt technology-enabled solutions (e.g., electricity connection, availability of space and outlets, stock of computers, and Internet connectivity at school and at learners’ homes); and
• Capacity to integrate technology in the instructional process (e.g., learners’ and educators’ level of familiarity and comfort with hardware and software, their beliefs about the level of usefulness of technology for learning purposes, and their current uses of such technology).

Before engaging in any new data collection exercise, school systems should take full advantage of existing administrative data that could shed light on these three main questions. This could be in the form of internal evaluations but also international learner assessments, such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and/or the Progress in International Literacy Study (PIRLS), and the Teaching and Learning International Study (TALIS). But if school systems lack information on their preparedness for ed-tech reforms or if they seek to complement existing data with a richer set of indicators, we developed a set of surveys for learners, educators, and school leaders. Download the full report to see how we map out the main aspects covered by these surveys, in hopes of highlighting how they could be used to inform decisions around the adoption of ed-tech interventions.

The evidence:

How can school systems identify promising ed-tech interventions.

There is no single “ed-tech” initiative that will achieve the same results everywhere, simply because school systems differ in learners and educators, as well as in the availability and quality of materials and technologies. Instead, to realize the potential of education technology to accelerate student learning, decisionmakers should focus on four potential uses of technology that play to its comparative advantages and complement the work of educators to accelerate student learning (Figure 2). These comparative advantages include:

• Scaling up quality instruction, such as through prerecorded quality lessons.
• Facilitating differentiated instruction, through, for example, computer-adaptive learning and live one-on-one tutoring.
• Expanding opportunities to practice.
• Increasing learner engagement through videos and games.

Figure 2: Comparative advantages of technology

Here we review the evidence on ed-tech interventions from 37 studies in 20 countries*, organizing them by comparative advantage. It’s important to note that ours is not the only way to classify these interventions (e.g., video tutorials could be considered as a strategy to scale up instruction or increase learner engagement), but we believe it may be useful to highlight the needs that they could address and why technology is well positioned to do so.

When discussing specific studies, we report the magnitude of the effects of interventions using standard deviations (SDs). SDs are a widely used metric in research to express the effect of a program or policy with respect to a business-as-usual condition (e.g., test scores). There are several ways to make sense of them. One is to categorize the magnitude of the effects based on the results of impact evaluations. In developing countries, effects below 0.1 SDs are considered to be small, effects between 0.1 and 0.2 SDs are medium, and those above 0.2 SDs are large (for reviews that estimate the average effect of groups of interventions, called “meta analyses,” see e.g., Conn, 2017; Kremer, Brannen, & Glennerster, 2013; McEwan, 2014; Snilstveit et al., 2015; Evans & Yuan, 2020.)

*In surveying the evidence, we began by compiling studies from prior general and ed-tech specific evidence reviews that some of us have written and from ed-tech reviews conducted by others. Then, we tracked the studies cited by the ones we had previously read and reviewed those, as well. In identifying studies for inclusion, we focused on experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations of education technology interventions from pre-school to secondary school in low- and middle-income countries that were released between 2000 and 2020. We only included interventions that sought to improve student learning directly (i.e., students’ interaction with the material), as opposed to interventions that have impacted achievement indirectly, by reducing teacher absence or increasing parental engagement. This process yielded 37 studies in 20 countries (see the full list of studies in Appendix B).

Scaling up standardized instruction

One of the ways in which technology may improve the quality of education is through its capacity to deliver standardized quality content at scale. This feature of technology may be particularly useful in three types of settings: (a) those in “hard-to-staff” schools (i.e., schools that struggle to recruit educators with the requisite training and experience—typically, in rural and/or remote areas) (see, e.g., Urquiola & Vegas, 2005); (b) those in which many educators are frequently absent from school (e.g., Chaudhury, Hammer, Kremer, Muralidharan, & Rogers, 2006; Muralidharan, Das, Holla, & Mohpal, 2017); and/or (c) those in which educators have low levels of pedagogical and subject matter expertise (e.g., Bietenbeck, Piopiunik, & Wiederhold, 2018; Bold et al., 2017; Metzler & Woessmann, 2012; Santibañez, 2006) and do not have opportunities to observe and receive feedback (e.g., Bruns, Costa, & Cunha, 2018; Cilliers, Fleisch, Prinsloo, & Taylor, 2018). Technology could address this problem by: (a) disseminating lessons delivered by qualified educators to a large number of learners (e.g., through prerecorded or live lessons); (b) enabling distance education (e.g., for learners in remote areas and/or during periods of school closures); and (c) distributing hardware preloaded with educational materials.

Prerecorded lessons

Technology seems to be well placed to amplify the impact of effective educators by disseminating their lessons. Evidence on the impact of prerecorded lessons is encouraging, but not conclusive. Some initiatives that have used short instructional videos to complement regular instruction, in conjunction with other learning materials, have raised student learning on independent assessments. For example, Beg et al. (2020) evaluated an initiative in Punjab, Pakistan in which grade 8 classrooms received an intervention that included short videos to substitute live instruction, quizzes for learners to practice the material from every lesson, tablets for educators to learn the material and follow the lesson, and LED screens to project the videos onto a classroom screen. After six months, the intervention improved the performance of learners on independent tests of math and science by 0.19 and 0.24 SDs, respectively but had no discernible effect on the math and science section of Punjab’s high-stakes exams.

One study suggests that approaches that are far less technologically sophisticated can also improve learning outcomes—especially, if the business-as-usual instruction is of low quality. For example, Naslund-Hadley, Parker, and Hernandez-Agramonte (2014) evaluated a preschool math program in Cordillera, Paraguay that used audio segments and written materials four days per week for an hour per day during the school day. After five months, the intervention improved math scores by 0.16 SDs, narrowing gaps between low- and high-achieving learners, and between those with and without educators with formal training in early childhood education.

Yet, the integration of prerecorded material into regular instruction has not always been successful. For example, de Barros (2020) evaluated an intervention that combined instructional videos for math and science with infrastructure upgrades (e.g., two “smart” classrooms, two TVs, and two tablets), printed workbooks for students, and in-service training for educators of learners in grades 9 and 10 in Haryana, India (all materials were mapped onto the official curriculum). After 11 months, the intervention negatively impacted math achievement (by 0.08 SDs) and had no effect on science (with respect to business as usual classes). It reduced the share of lesson time that educators devoted to instruction and negatively impacted an index of instructional quality. Likewise, Seo (2017) evaluated several combinations of infrastructure (solar lights and TVs) and prerecorded videos (in English and/or bilingual) for grade 11 students in northern Tanzania and found that none of the variants improved student learning, even when the videos were used. The study reports effects from the infrastructure component across variants, but as others have noted (Muralidharan, Romero, & Wüthrich, 2019), this approach to estimating impact is problematic.

A very similar intervention delivered after school hours, however, had sizeable effects on learners’ basic skills. Chiplunkar, Dhar, and Nagesh (2020) evaluated an initiative in Chennai (the capital city of the state of Tamil Nadu, India) delivered by the same organization as above that combined short videos that explained key concepts in math and science with worksheets, facilitator-led instruction, small groups for peer-to-peer learning, and occasional career counseling and guidance for grade 9 students. These lessons took place after school for one hour, five times a week. After 10 months, it had large effects on learners’ achievement as measured by tests of basic skills in math and reading, but no effect on a standardized high-stakes test in grade 10 or socio-emotional skills (e.g., teamwork, decisionmaking, and communication).

Drawing general lessons from this body of research is challenging for at least two reasons. First, all of the studies above have evaluated the impact of prerecorded lessons combined with several other components (e.g., hardware, print materials, or other activities). Therefore, it is possible that the effects found are due to these additional components, rather than to the recordings themselves, or to the interaction between the two (see Muralidharan, 2017 for a discussion of the challenges of interpreting “bundled” interventions). Second, while these studies evaluate some type of prerecorded lessons, none examines the content of such lessons. Thus, it seems entirely plausible that the direction and magnitude of the effects depends largely on the quality of the recordings (e.g., the expertise of the educator recording it, the amount of preparation that went into planning the recording, and its alignment with best teaching practices).

These studies also raise three important questions worth exploring in future research. One of them is why none of the interventions discussed above had effects on high-stakes exams, even if their materials are typically mapped onto the official curriculum. It is possible that the official curricula are simply too challenging for learners in these settings, who are several grade levels behind expectations and who often need to reinforce basic skills (see Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). Another question is whether these interventions have long-term effects on teaching practices. It seems plausible that, if these interventions are deployed in contexts with low teaching quality, educators may learn something from watching the videos or listening to the recordings with learners. Yet another question is whether these interventions make it easier for schools to deliver instruction to learners whose native language is other than the official medium of instruction.

Distance education

Technology can also allow learners living in remote areas to access education. The evidence on these initiatives is encouraging. For example, Johnston and Ksoll (2017) evaluated a program that broadcasted live instruction via satellite to rural primary school students in the Volta and Greater Accra regions of Ghana. For this purpose, the program also equipped classrooms with the technology needed to connect to a studio in Accra, including solar panels, a satellite modem, a projector, a webcam, microphones, and a computer with interactive software. After two years, the intervention improved the numeracy scores of students in grades 2 through 4, and some foundational literacy tasks, but it had no effect on attendance or classroom time devoted to instruction, as captured by school visits. The authors interpreted these results as suggesting that the gains in achievement may be due to improving the quality of instruction that children received (as opposed to increased instructional time). Naik, Chitre, Bhalla, and Rajan (2019) evaluated a similar program in the Indian state of Karnataka and also found positive effects on learning outcomes, but it is not clear whether those effects are due to the program or due to differences in the groups of students they compared to estimate the impact of the initiative.

In one context (Mexico), this type of distance education had positive long-term effects. Navarro-Sola (2019) took advantage of the staggered rollout of the telesecundarias (i.e., middle schools with lessons broadcasted through satellite TV) in 1968 to estimate its impact. The policy had short-term effects on students’ enrollment in school: For every telesecundaria per 50 children, 10 students enrolled in middle school and two pursued further education. It also had a long-term influence on the educational and employment trajectory of its graduates. Each additional year of education induced by the policy increased average income by nearly 18 percent. This effect was attributable to more graduates entering the labor force and shifting from agriculture and the informal sector. Similarly, Fabregas (2019) leveraged a later expansion of this policy in 1993 and found that each additional telesecundaria per 1,000 adolescents led to an average increase of 0.2 years of education, and a decline in fertility for women, but no conclusive evidence of long-term effects on labor market outcomes.

It is crucial to interpret these results keeping in mind the settings where the interventions were implemented. As we mention above, part of the reason why they have proven effective is that the “counterfactual” conditions for learning (i.e., what would have happened to learners in the absence of such programs) was either to not have access to schooling or to be exposed to low-quality instruction. School systems interested in taking up similar interventions should assess the extent to which their learners (or parts of their learner population) find themselves in similar conditions to the subjects of the studies above. This illustrates the importance of assessing the needs of a system before reviewing the evidence.

Preloaded hardware

Technology also seems well positioned to disseminate educational materials. Specifically, hardware (e.g., desktop computers, laptops, or tablets) could also help deliver educational software (e.g., word processing, reference texts, and/or games). In theory, these materials could not only undergo a quality assurance review (e.g., by curriculum specialists and educators), but also draw on the interactions with learners for adjustments (e.g., identifying areas needing reinforcement) and enable interactions between learners and educators.

In practice, however, most initiatives that have provided learners with free computers, laptops, and netbooks do not leverage any of the opportunities mentioned above. Instead, they install a standard set of educational materials and hope that learners find them helpful enough to take them up on their own. Students rarely do so, and instead use the laptops for recreational purposes—often, to the detriment of their learning (see, e.g., Malamud & Pop-Eleches, 2011). In fact, free netbook initiatives have not only consistently failed to improve academic achievement in math or language (e.g., Cristia et al., 2017), but they have had no impact on learners’ general computer skills (e.g., Beuermann et al., 2015). Some of these initiatives have had small impacts on cognitive skills, but the mechanisms through which those effects occurred remains unclear.

To our knowledge, the only successful deployment of a free laptop initiative was one in which a team of researchers equipped the computers with remedial software. Mo et al. (2013) evaluated a version of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program for grade 3 students in migrant schools in Beijing, China in which the laptops were loaded with a remedial software mapped onto the national curriculum for math (similar to the software products that we discuss under “practice exercises” below). After nine months, the program improved math achievement by 0.17 SDs and computer skills by 0.33 SDs. If a school system decides to invest in free laptops, this study suggests that the quality of the software on the laptops is crucial.

To date, however, the evidence suggests that children do not learn more from interacting with laptops than they do from textbooks. For example, Bando, Gallego, Gertler, and Romero (2016) compared the effect of free laptop and textbook provision in 271 elementary schools in disadvantaged areas of Honduras. After seven months, students in grades 3 and 6 who had received the laptops performed on par with those who had received the textbooks in math and language. Further, even if textbooks essentially become obsolete at the end of each school year, whereas laptops can be reloaded with new materials for each year, the costs of laptop provision (not just the hardware, but also the technical assistance, Internet, and training associated with it) are not yet low enough to make them a more cost-effective way of delivering content to learners.

Evidence on the provision of tablets equipped with software is encouraging but limited. For example, de Hoop et al. (2020) evaluated a composite intervention for first grade students in Zambia’s Eastern Province that combined infrastructure (electricity via solar power), hardware (projectors and tablets), and educational materials (lesson plans for educators and interactive lessons for learners, both loaded onto the tablets and mapped onto the official Zambian curriculum). After 14 months, the intervention had improved student early-grade reading by 0.4 SDs, oral vocabulary scores by 0.25 SDs, and early-grade math by 0.22 SDs. It also improved students’ achievement by 0.16 on a locally developed assessment. The multifaceted nature of the program, however, makes it challenging to identify the components that are driving the positive effects. Pitchford (2015) evaluated an intervention that provided tablets equipped with educational “apps,” to be used for 30 minutes per day for two months to develop early math skills among students in grades 1 through 3 in Lilongwe, Malawi. The evaluation found positive impacts in math achievement, but the main study limitation is that it was conducted in a single school.

Facilitating differentiated instruction

Another way in which technology may improve educational outcomes is by facilitating the delivery of differentiated or individualized instruction. Most developing countries massively expanded access to schooling in recent decades by building new schools and making education more affordable, both by defraying direct costs, as well as compensating for opportunity costs (Duflo, 2001; World Bank, 2018). These initiatives have not only rapidly increased the number of learners enrolled in school, but have also increased the variability in learner’ preparation for schooling. Consequently, a large number of learners perform well below grade-based curricular expectations (see, e.g., Duflo, Dupas, & Kremer, 2011; Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). These learners are unlikely to get much from “one-size-fits-all” instruction, in which a single educator delivers instruction deemed appropriate for the middle (or top) of the achievement distribution (Banerjee & Duflo, 2011). Technology could potentially help these learners by providing them with: (a) instruction and opportunities for practice that adjust to the level and pace of preparation of each individual (known as “computer-adaptive learning” (CAL)); or (b) live, one-on-one tutoring.

Computer-adaptive learning

One of the main comparative advantages of technology is its ability to diagnose students’ initial learning levels and assign students to instruction and exercises of appropriate difficulty. No individual educator—no matter how talented—can be expected to provide individualized instruction to all learners in his/her class simultaneously . In this respect, technology is uniquely positioned to complement traditional teaching. This use of technology could help learners master basic skills and help them get more out of schooling.

Although many software products evaluated in recent years have been categorized as CAL, many rely on a relatively coarse level of differentiation at an initial stage (e.g., a diagnostic test) without further differentiation. We discuss these initiatives under the category of “increasing opportunities for practice” below. CAL initiatives complement an initial diagnostic with dynamic adaptation (i.e., at each response or set of responses from learners) to adjust both the initial level of difficulty and rate at which it increases or decreases, depending on whether learners’ responses are correct or incorrect.

Existing evidence on this specific type of programs is highly promising. Most famously, Banerjee et al. (2007) evaluated CAL software in Vadodara, in the Indian state of Gujarat, in which grade 4 students were offered two hours of shared computer time per week before and after school, during which they played games that involved solving math problems. The level of difficulty of such problems adjusted based on students’ answers. This program improved math achievement by 0.35 and 0.47 SDs after one and two years of implementation, respectively. Consistent with the promise of personalized learning, the software improved achievement for all students. In fact, one year after the end of the program, students assigned to the program still performed 0.1 SDs better than those assigned to a business as usual condition. More recently, Muralidharan, et al. (2019) evaluated a “blended learning” initiative in which students in grades 4 through 9 in Delhi, India received 45 minutes of interaction with CAL software for math and language, and 45 minutes of small group instruction before or after going to school. After only 4.5 months, the program improved achievement by 0.37 SDs in math and 0.23 SDs in Hindi. While all learners benefited from the program in absolute terms, the lowest performing learners benefited the most in relative terms, since they were learning very little in school.

We see two important limitations from this body of research. First, to our knowledge, none of these initiatives has been evaluated when implemented during the school day. Therefore, it is not possible to distinguish the effect of the adaptive software from that of additional instructional time. Second, given that most of these programs were facilitated by local instructors, attempts to distinguish the effect of the software from that of the instructors has been mostly based on noncausal evidence. A frontier challenge in this body of research is to understand whether CAL software can increase the effectiveness of school-based instruction by substituting part of the regularly scheduled time for math and language instruction.

Live one-on-one tutoring

Recent improvements in the speed and quality of videoconferencing, as well as in the connectivity of remote areas, have enabled yet another way in which technology can help personalization: live (i.e., real-time) one-on-one tutoring. While the evidence on in-person tutoring is scarce in developing countries, existing studies suggest that this approach works best when it is used to personalize instruction (see, e.g., Banerjee et al., 2007; Banerji, Berry, & Shotland, 2015; Cabezas, Cuesta, & Gallego, 2011).

There are almost no studies on the impact of online tutoring—possibly, due to the lack of hardware and Internet connectivity in low- and middle-income countries. One exception is Chemin and Oledan (2020)’s recent evaluation of an online tutoring program for grade 6 students in Kianyaga, Kenya to learn English from volunteers from a Canadian university via Skype ( videoconferencing software) for one hour per week after school. After 10 months, program beneficiaries performed 0.22 SDs better in a test of oral comprehension, improved their comfort using technology for learning, and became more willing to engage in cross-cultural communication. Importantly, while the tutoring sessions used the official English textbooks and sought in part to help learners with their homework, tutors were trained on several strategies to teach to each learner’s individual level of preparation, focusing on basic skills if necessary. To our knowledge, similar initiatives within a country have not yet been rigorously evaluated.

Expanding opportunities for practice

A third way in which technology may improve the quality of education is by providing learners with additional opportunities for practice. In many developing countries, lesson time is primarily devoted to lectures, in which the educator explains the topic and the learners passively copy explanations from the blackboard. This setup leaves little time for in-class practice. Consequently, learners who did not understand the explanation of the material during lecture struggle when they have to solve homework assignments on their own. Technology could potentially address this problem by allowing learners to review topics at their own pace.

Practice exercises

Technology can help learners get more out of traditional instruction by providing them with opportunities to implement what they learn in class. This approach could, in theory, allow some learners to anchor their understanding of the material through trial and error (i.e., by realizing what they may not have understood correctly during lecture and by getting better acquainted with special cases not covered in-depth in class).

Existing evidence on practice exercises reflects both the promise and the limitations of this use of technology in developing countries. For example, Lai et al. (2013) evaluated a program in Shaanxi, China where students in grades 3 and 5 were required to attend two 40-minute remedial sessions per week in which they first watched videos that reviewed the material that had been introduced in their math lessons that week and then played games to practice the skills introduced in the video. After four months, the intervention improved math achievement by 0.12 SDs. Many other evaluations of comparable interventions have found similar small-to-moderate results (see, e.g., Lai, Luo, Zhang, Huang, & Rozelle, 2015; Lai et al., 2012; Mo et al., 2015; Pitchford, 2015). These effects, however, have been consistently smaller than those of initiatives that adjust the difficulty of the material based on students’ performance (e.g., Banerjee et al., 2007; Muralidharan, et al., 2019). We hypothesize that these programs do little for learners who perform several grade levels behind curricular expectations, and who would benefit more from a review of foundational concepts from earlier grades.

We see two important limitations from this research. First, most initiatives that have been evaluated thus far combine instructional videos with practice exercises, so it is hard to know whether their effects are driven by the former or the latter. In fact, the program in China described above allowed learners to ask their peers whenever they did not understand a difficult concept, so it potentially also captured the effect of peer-to-peer collaboration. To our knowledge, no studies have addressed this gap in the evidence.

Second, most of these programs are implemented before or after school, so we cannot distinguish the effect of additional instructional time from that of the actual opportunity for practice. The importance of this question was first highlighted by Linden (2008), who compared two delivery mechanisms for game-based remedial math software for students in grades 2 and 3 in a network of schools run by a nonprofit organization in Gujarat, India: one in which students interacted with the software during the school day and another one in which students interacted with the software before or after school (in both cases, for three hours per day). After a year, the first version of the program had negatively impacted students’ math achievement by 0.57 SDs and the second one had a null effect. This study suggested that computer-assisted learning is a poor substitute for regular instruction when it is of high quality, as was the case in this well-functioning private network of schools.

In recent years, several studies have sought to remedy this shortcoming. Mo et al. (2014) were among the first to evaluate practice exercises delivered during the school day. They evaluated an initiative in Shaanxi, China in which students in grades 3 and 5 were required to interact with the software similar to the one in Lai et al. (2013) for two 40-minute sessions per week. The main limitation of this study, however, is that the program was delivered during regularly scheduled computer lessons, so it could not determine the impact of substituting regular math instruction. Similarly, Mo et al. (2020) evaluated a self-paced and a teacher-directed version of a similar program for English for grade 5 students in Qinghai, China. Yet, the key shortcoming of this study is that the teacher-directed version added several components that may also influence achievement, such as increased opportunities for teachers to provide students with personalized assistance when they struggled with the material. Ma, Fairlie, Loyalka, and Rozelle (2020) compared the effectiveness of additional time-delivered remedial instruction for students in grades 4 to 6 in Shaanxi, China through either computer-assisted software or using workbooks. This study indicates whether additional instructional time is more effective when using technology, but it does not address the question of whether school systems may improve the productivity of instructional time during the school day by substituting educator-led with computer-assisted instruction.

Increasing learner engagement

Another way in which technology may improve education is by increasing learners’ engagement with the material. In many school systems, regular “chalk and talk” instruction prioritizes time for educators’ exposition over opportunities for learners to ask clarifying questions and/or contribute to class discussions. This, combined with the fact that many developing-country classrooms include a very large number of learners (see, e.g., Angrist & Lavy, 1999; Duflo, Dupas, & Kremer, 2015), may partially explain why the majority of those students are several grade levels behind curricular expectations (e.g., Muralidharan, et al., 2019; Muralidharan & Zieleniak, 2014; Pritchett & Beatty, 2015). Technology could potentially address these challenges by: (a) using video tutorials for self-paced learning and (b) presenting exercises as games and/or gamifying practice.

Video tutorials

Technology can potentially increase learner effort and understanding of the material by finding new and more engaging ways to deliver it. Video tutorials designed for self-paced learning—as opposed to videos for whole class instruction, which we discuss under the category of “prerecorded lessons” above—can increase learner effort in multiple ways, including: allowing learners to focus on topics with which they need more help, letting them correct errors and misconceptions on their own, and making the material appealing through visual aids. They can increase understanding by breaking the material into smaller units and tackling common misconceptions.

In spite of the popularity of instructional videos, there is relatively little evidence on their effectiveness. Yet, two recent evaluations of different versions of the Khan Academy portal, which mainly relies on instructional videos, offer some insight into their impact. First, Ferman, Finamor, and Lima (2019) evaluated an initiative in 157 public primary and middle schools in five cities in Brazil in which the teachers of students in grades 5 and 9 were taken to the computer lab to learn math from the platform for 50 minutes per week. The authors found that, while the intervention slightly improved learners’ attitudes toward math, these changes did not translate into better performance in this subject. The authors hypothesized that this could be due to the reduction of teacher-led math instruction.

More recently, Büchel, Jakob, Kühnhanss, Steffen, and Brunetti (2020) evaluated an after-school, offline delivery of the Khan Academy portal in grades 3 through 6 in 302 primary schools in Morazán, El Salvador. Students in this study received 90 minutes per week of additional math instruction (effectively nearly doubling total math instruction per week) through teacher-led regular lessons, teacher-assisted Khan Academy lessons, or similar lessons assisted by technical supervisors with no content expertise. (Importantly, the first group provided differentiated instruction, which is not the norm in Salvadorian schools). All three groups outperformed both schools without any additional lessons and classrooms without additional lessons in the same schools as the program. The teacher-assisted Khan Academy lessons performed 0.24 SDs better, the supervisor-led lessons 0.22 SDs better, and the teacher-led regular lessons 0.15 SDs better, but the authors could not determine whether the effects across versions were different.

Together, these studies suggest that instructional videos work best when provided as a complement to, rather than as a substitute for, regular instruction. Yet, the main limitation of these studies is the multifaceted nature of the Khan Academy portal, which also includes other components found to positively improve learner achievement, such as differentiated instruction by students’ learning levels. While the software does not provide the type of personalization discussed above, learners are asked to take a placement test and, based on their score, educators assign them different work. Therefore, it is not clear from these studies whether the effects from Khan Academy are driven by its instructional videos or to the software’s ability to provide differentiated activities when combined with placement tests.

Games and gamification

Technology can also increase learner engagement by presenting exercises as games and/or by encouraging learner to play and compete with others (e.g., using leaderboards and rewards)—an approach known as “gamification.” Both approaches can increase learner motivation and effort by presenting learners with entertaining opportunities for practice and by leveraging peers as commitment devices.

There are very few studies on the effects of games and gamification in low- and middle-income countries. Recently, Araya, Arias Ortiz, Bottan, and Cristia (2019) evaluated an initiative in which grade 4 students in Santiago, Chile were required to participate in two 90-minute sessions per week during the school day with instructional math software featuring individual and group competitions (e.g., tracking each learner’s standing in his/her class and tournaments between sections). After nine months, the program led to improvements of 0.27 SDs in the national student assessment in math (it had no spillover effects on reading). However, it had mixed effects on non-academic outcomes. Specifically, the program increased learners’ willingness to use computers to learn math, but, at the same time, increased their anxiety toward math and negatively impacted learners’ willingness to collaborate with peers. Finally, given that one of the weekly sessions replaced regular math instruction and the other one represented additional math instructional time, it is not clear whether the academic effects of the program are driven by the software or the additional time devoted to learning math.

The prognosis:

How can school systems adopt interventions that match their needs.

Here are five specific and sequential guidelines for decisionmakers to realize the potential of education technology to accelerate student learning.

1. Take stock of how your current schools, educators, and learners are engaging with technology .

Carry out a short in-school survey to understand the current practices and potential barriers to adoption of technology (we have included suggested survey instruments in the Appendices); use this information in your decisionmaking process. For example, we learned from conversations with current and former ministers of education from various developing regions that a common limitation to technology use is regulations that hold school leaders accountable for damages to or losses of devices. Another common barrier is lack of access to electricity and Internet, or even the availability of sufficient outlets for charging devices in classrooms. Understanding basic infrastructure and regulatory limitations to the use of education technology is a first necessary step. But addressing these limitations will not guarantee that introducing or expanding technology use will accelerate learning. The next steps are thus necessary.

“In Africa, the biggest limit is connectivity. Fiber is expensive, and we don’t have it everywhere. The continent is creating a digital divide between cities, where there is fiber, and the rural areas.  The [Ghanaian] administration put in schools offline/online technologies with books, assessment tools, and open source materials. In deploying this, we are finding that again, teachers are unfamiliar with it. And existing policies prohibit students to bring their own tablets or cell phones. The easiest way to do it would have been to let everyone bring their own device. But policies are against it.” H.E. Matthew Prempeh, Minister of Education of Ghana, on the need to understand the local context.

2. Consider how the introduction of technology may affect the interactions among learners, educators, and content .

Our review of the evidence indicates that technology may accelerate student learning when it is used to scale up access to quality content, facilitate differentiated instruction, increase opportunities for practice, or when it increases learner engagement. For example, will adding electronic whiteboards to classrooms facilitate access to more quality content or differentiated instruction? Or will these expensive boards be used in the same way as the old chalkboards? Will providing one device (laptop or tablet) to each learner facilitate access to more and better content, or offer students more opportunities to practice and learn? Solely introducing technology in classrooms without additional changes is unlikely to lead to improved learning and may be quite costly. If you cannot clearly identify how the interactions among the three key components of the instructional core (educators, learners, and content) may change after the introduction of technology, then it is probably not a good idea to make the investment. See Appendix A for guidance on the types of questions to ask.

3. Once decisionmakers have a clear idea of how education technology can help accelerate student learning in a specific context, it is important to define clear objectives and goals and establish ways to regularly assess progress and make course corrections in a timely manner .

For instance, is the education technology expected to ensure that learners in early grades excel in foundational skills—basic literacy and numeracy—by age 10? If so, will the technology provide quality reading and math materials, ample opportunities to practice, and engaging materials such as videos or games? Will educators be empowered to use these materials in new ways? And how will progress be measured and adjusted?

4. How this kind of reform is approached can matter immensely for its success.

It is easy to nod to issues of “implementation,” but that needs to be more than rhetorical. Keep in mind that good use of education technology requires thinking about how it will affect learners, educators, and parents. After all, giving learners digital devices will make no difference if they get broken, are stolen, or go unused. Classroom technologies only matter if educators feel comfortable putting them to work. Since good technology is generally about complementing or amplifying what educators and learners already do, it is almost always a mistake to mandate programs from on high. It is vital that technology be adopted with the input of educators and families and with attention to how it will be used. If technology goes unused or if educators use it ineffectually, the results will disappoint—no matter the virtuosity of the technology. Indeed, unused education technology can be an unnecessary expenditure for cash-strapped education systems. This is why surveying context, listening to voices in the field, examining how technology is used, and planning for course correction is essential.

5. It is essential to communicate with a range of stakeholders, including educators, school leaders, parents, and learners .

Technology can feel alien in schools, confuse parents and (especially) older educators, or become an alluring distraction. Good communication can help address all of these risks. Taking care to listen to educators and families can help ensure that programs are informed by their needs and concerns. At the same time, deliberately and consistently explaining what technology is and is not supposed to do, how it can be most effectively used, and the ways in which it can make it more likely that programs work as intended. For instance, if teachers fear that technology is intended to reduce the need for educators, they will tend to be hostile; if they believe that it is intended to assist them in their work, they will be more receptive. Absent effective communication, it is easy for programs to “fail” not because of the technology but because of how it was used. In short, past experience in rolling out education programs indicates that it is as important to have a strong intervention design as it is to have a solid plan to socialize it among stakeholders.

Beyond reopening: A leapfrog moment to transform education?

On September 14, the Center for Universal Education (CUE) will host a webinar to discuss strategies, including around the effective use of education technology, for ensuring resilient schools in the long term and to launch a new education technology playbook “Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all?”

file-pdf Full Playbook – Realizing the promise: How can education technology improve learning for all? file-pdf References file-pdf Appendix A – Instruments to assess availability and use of technology file-pdf Appendix B – List of reviewed studies file-pdf Appendix C – How may technology affect interactions among students, teachers, and content?

About the Authors

Alejandro j. ganimian, emiliana vegas, frederick m. hess.

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The Pros And Cons Of Mixing Technology And Homework

Remote school and work have blurred the lines between work and home. How does this shape the debate over homework?

Pros Of Tech-Centered Homework

by Casey Thompson

Does eLearning count as homework since kids complete it all at home? When staring down a backlog of missing assignments, it doesn’t seem like it. The homework debate continues to rage as burnt-out staff and students march toward the end of the school year.

Sc reen fatigue , eye strain, and a growing aversion to technology cast an interesting angle on the debate: how has technology affected the way we view homework?

Flexible work with flipped classrooms

One type of blended learning flips the traditional sit’n’get lecture into cyberspace, freeing up synchronous class time to discuss and practice the concepts with a teacher to coach and clarify.

See also The Difference Between Synchronous And Asynchronous Learning

Time management skills

Kids who have mastered asynchronous virtual learning are flexing increased time management skills as well. In the absence of a teacher guiding each student through a schedule, students are expected to manage their own assignments, due dates, and turning in work. 

More communication and built-in feedback

Assignments delivered via technology (including an LMS or practice systems) give teachers an opportunity to attach expectations and the right way to use rubrics. Students can reference this documentation during the assignment. After work is submitted, students receive feedback embedded into the assignment.

Focus on needed skills rather than every subject

It’s not necessarily about the content of the assignment, but the skills needed to complete it. Time management, self-motivation, scheduling, the ability to multitask or focus when the situation calls for it, and the willingness to try something new all contribute to a well-rounded individual. Students who are tasked with a lot of tech-centered homework can practice these skills while mastering the content of each subject.

See How Parents Can Help With Critical Thinking At Home

Cons Of Mixing Homework And Technology

No boundaries between school and home.

When the world shifted to virtual, many workers and students found that work moved home, and home felt… different. The boundaries blurred between rest and study. This effect is felt more deeply by some than others, and in different ways: think of the differences between introverted and extroverted people, those who crave structure and those who loathe it (and maybe more tellingly, those who need structure for success and those who don’t).

For a vast number of kids of various ages who still very much need the structure of the classroom, the lack of boundaries isn’t just unhealthy—it runs the risk of interrupting important developmental milestones.

Max homework from everyone = unmanageable workload

When homework happens via technology, it’s tempting to set the max workload. After all, especially if classroom time is at a premium (or not happening) how else can teachers gauge progress? It’s a catch-22: not enough homework and we worry kids aren’t getting the enrichment and experience they need. Too much, and kids are overwhelmed with assignments from all angles.

Password and application management takes time

Mo’ systems, mo’ problems—with managing credentials, switching between systems, and knowing where to find what. While edtech is still a long way off from a seamless, universal experience, interoperability and single sign-on are helping. It’s still a bit of a learning curve to figure out how to use each system homework is housed within—and learning them takes cognitive energy away from the actual lessons at hand.

Technology issues impact homework being completed

If students don’t have access to high-speed internet, they may not be able to turn in completed assignments or even work on certain assignments housed in cloud-based systems. Some families share devices among multiple children or with adults working in the home. Although 1:1 programs can help combat this, tech issues can pose a tricky barrier to homework.

Technology is designed to hook us

It’s no secret social media and its infinite scroll are designed to keep users coming back for more. The grip of technology has had a fair number of parents and experts worried as children increase screen use. If school and homework require tech, and students want to spend their leisure time on screens too, families must set boundaries to make time for IRL activity.

In most districts, homework plays a crucial role in education Still, setting thoughtful expectations schoolwide can help students allocate their best effort to learning the skills that matter for their futures.

Casey Thompson advocates for ethical digital experience and security as the digital media manager for Skyward, Inc. His expertise covers digital media marketing, while his passion lies in user experience, web design, and digital artwork. When not in the digital realm, Casey ventures into nature in pursuit of adventure.

TeachThought is an organization dedicated to innovation in education through the growth of outstanding teachers.

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Technology and Homework: Can We Teach Teens A Healthy Balance?

“But I’m using my phone to do my homework!”

If you’re the parent of a middle school or high school student, you’ve likely heard these words when you ask them to put away the phone and get their homework done.

As technology invades every corner of our kids’ lives, both at home and at school, it has become increasingly difficult to help them develop a healthy relationship with it and use it for good instead of Instagram. (Okay, so we all like a little Instagram now and then.)

The fact is, your kids probably do need technology to do their homework—at least some of the time.

The trick is to help teens recognize when technology is helping them study, and when it’s just derailing their productivity.

4 Ways to Help Teens Learn to Use Technology Wisely:

1. choose educational apps carefully..

Consider educational apps. The educational technology sector is booming with apps designed to help kids master new concepts. Looking for an app to help with algebra? There are hundreds. But that doesn’t mean they are all helpful to your child.

“There’s a lot of garbage out there, especially with people out to make a quick buck,” says Emily Levitt, Vice President of Education at Sylvan Learning. Sylvan’s teachers are trained to help engage students using interactive technology.

“For example, your child might have a project on photosynthesis,” Levitt says. “An app might hit on the buzzword you’re looking for, but not the content they need. Having reviewed hundreds of pieces of educational technology, our tutors can provide recommendations to parents that will actually support their child’s learning.”

Don’t exclusively use apps that just require students to memorize information and take quizzes, educators suggest. Look for apps that encourage students to analyze information, make judgments, or create something new with their knowledge.

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2. Put the phone away when doing homework.

When working on a project that involves internet research, students naturally gravitate toward their smartphones. However, if you have a student who struggles to stay on task, Levitt recommends putting the phone in another room during homework time.

“The phone is always beckoning with texting and social media,” says Levitt. “If possible, have the student use another computer or tablet for homework. Ideally, one that is not connected to the student’s personal apps.”

What about those dreaded group projects? Rather than texting back and forth, encourage students to use a collaborative platform like Google Docs. “This allows every student to contribute and see others’ changes in real time, and it can also allow a teacher to see the history of everyone’s participation,” says Levitt.

3. Create as much as you consume.

Parents should consider that what children are doing online is just as important as how much time they are spending doing it, says Dr. Troy Hicks, an associate professor at Central Michigan University who focuses on education and technology.

“Any ‘balance’—either in school or at home—would demand that students are creating at least as much of their own original content for academic and creative purposes as they are consuming what is available to them,” advises Hicks.

“Let’s put that in concrete terms. For every hour viewing YouTube or playing a video game, a student should spend another hour creating their own video or learning to code.”

4. Keep informed about what’s out there.

“Ask your children thoughtful questions about their personal and academic uses of technology,” recommends Hicks. “Rather than lecturing them about the negative effects of technology, engage in a dialogue with your children about their media use.” The goal is that they—and not parents—“will be much better able to make the critical decisions we would expect of them as they become responsible adults.”

Technology is here to stay, for work and for play. The goal is to help our kids be aware of its role in their teens’ lives so that it serves them well, rather than the other way around.

Homework for a digital age: Using instructional technology to make homework more effective

• Teacher Reflection
• Published on: January 31, 2022

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• Curriculum |
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• Costello J and Crane D (2013) Technologies for learner-centered feedback. Open Praxis 5(3): 217–225.
• Demir M and Souldatos I (2007) Exploring students’ online homework completion behaviors. International Journal for Technology in Mathematics Education 27(3): 167–178.
• Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (2021) Homework: High impact for very low cost based on very limited evidence. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/homework (accessed 22 November 2021).
• Hew KF, Bai S, Huang W et al. (2021) On the use of flipped classroom across various disciplines: Insights from a second-order meta-analysis. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 37(2): 132–151.
• Magalhães P, Ferreira D, Cunha J et al. (2020) Online vs traditional homework: A systematic review on the benefits to students’ performance. Computers & Education 152: 103869.
• Terada Y (2020) SAMR: A Powerful Model for Understanding Good Tech Integration. Edutopia, May 4, 2020. Available at: https://www.edutopia.org/article/powerful-model-understanding-good-tech-integration (accessed 30 November 2021).

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How teacher-led research can meaningfully contribute to appraisals

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From well-intentioned to evidence-informed: Making the shift on a large scale

Using research to embed an evidenced-informed pastoral curriculum to support whole school behaviour policies

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Leveraging Technology to Support Students’ Needs

Teachers can apply a concept called ‘tech equity’ to ensure that the technology they use is enhancing learning for all of their students.

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Educators have always had to be extremely flexible reinventors, perhaps never more so than recently. Students and teachers are connecting digitally in ways that were previously unimagined. Although virtual connections have been instrumental throughout pandemic teaching, they’ve also exposed the larger digital divide between student opportunity and achievement beyond the four walls of a classroom.

The rapid switch to technology means that everyone needs to move from just consuming and sampling new technology to a true application and reliance on digital tools to transfer learning. Educators need to understand what tech equity is—leveraging technology to support all students’ needs—and how to best apply instructional design through culturally responsive teaching to assist learner-centered modalities.

Tech to Support Equity

The International Society for Technology in Education ( ISTE ) is a “community of global educators who believe in the power of technology to transform teaching and learning.” Educators can begin to grasp tech equity by first understanding the ISTE Standards for Educators —for example, “Leader Standard 2b: Advocating to meet the needs of all students with technology.” The first step to take toward advocacy for our students is authentically applying UDL, accessibility, and inclusion in our design.

Universal Design for Learning

CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology) set up the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a framework to “improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn.”

When we apply the principles of UDL, we ensure an inclusive approach to learning because we give students opportunities to make choices based on their strengths. Examining how we infuse technology with UDL lesson plans helps identify components that complement the strengths of all students and circumvent inequities.

Accessibility

One way to ensure ease of access is to consider how accessible digital tools really are for our learners. The Web Accessibility Initiative makes clear that students’ needs vary online and in person. “When websites and web tools are properly designed and coded, people with disabilities can use them. However, currently many sites and tools are developed with accessibility barriers that make them difficult or impossible for some people to use.”

We can also use a tool like Grackle to evaluate how accessible our digital documents already are (e.g., accessing images, headings for screen readers). Accounting for accessibility while considering UDL is one step in ensuring equity in the technology we’re integrating.

Application

Understanding how technology increases the need for UDL implementation, accessibility, and inclusion is integral to our short- and long-term educational settings. The following applications can act as a guide as we increase our learners’ opportunities:

• Productivity apps allow students to collaborate in real time and produce in multiple modes (e.g., Google Slides, Google Forms, Jamboard, Sway ).
• Feedback and online discussion platforms permit conversations to suit the strengths of each learner (e.g., Flipgrid, Padlet, Mote ).
• Prerecording encourages students to learn asynchronously, at their own pace (e.g., Edpuzzle , Loom, Pear Deck).
• Gamification provides students a new way to interact with content and increases engagement (e.g., Quizlet, digital escape rooms , choose your own adventure, choice boards). 
• Digital libraries supply reading materials in text, in audio, and with additional tools to further increase access (e.g., Epic, CommonLit , Newsela, StoryCorps ).
• Conversion tools accommodate to help all students feel successful (e.g., Chrome extensions, screen readers , closed captioning, YouTube’s speed adjustment, transcriptions, printed-out HyperDocs).
• Incorporate diverse curriculum and reflection throughout all digital learning activities to make greater connections (e.g., #OwnVoice texts, virtual field trips, content to dismantle stereotypes, inviting diverse speakers).
• Enhance digital formative and summative assessments with the tools above (e.g., using EdPuzzle for formative assessment or Flipgrid to present a final project). Vary these assessments as one-on-one, group work, or voice and choice crossover, using UDL and ISTE standards to continuously support accessibility and inclusion.

Reinventing Transformation

The pandemic has taught us not to fear advances in technology, but instead to view them as ways we can explore how to best assist our students. Continuous learner-centered design will help us build upon tech equity advances so that we can unite all learners through inclusion and access for success. To commit further to tech equity in a digital or in-person class, we must continuously ask these questions:

• What do my students know? What strengths can I build upon? 
• How is the technology I use enhancing equitable teaching through UDL, accessibility, and inclusion?
• Are my students’ voices being heard?

There’s still work to be done because putting a device in every child’s hand and providing Wi-Fi alone doesn’t bridge the digital divide, but we must have confidence in our ability to minimize the inequities. Focusing on tech equity in virtual and in-person instruction strengthens 21st-century skills. If we continue to go forward with confidence, creativity, and an attitude of meeting challenges head-on, we will persevere in our transformation to best foster growth for all of our students.

Digital homework tools should be more than just the textbook as an app

Academic and Lecturer , CQUniversity Australia

Senior Lecturer in Educational Technology, CQUniversity Australia

Assistant researcher, CQUniversity Australia

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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Schools are increasingly incorporating digital technologies into their teaching practice, raising questions about whether these technologies actually enhance the learning process.

We’re particularly interested the role of technology in homework. Is homework – particularly in digitally aligned STEM areas such as mathematics – any different on a digital device? And, if not, should it be?

We have found that the range of educational websites and apps currently available fail to capitalise on the unique opportunities of digital technology. Working together, technologists and educators could design tools for digital homework that are interactive, instructive, and allow teachers to monitor their students’ progress – leading to better learning outcomes for all.

Read more: Technology in the classroom can improve primary mathematics

The (negligible) value of homework

Despite the prevalence of homework in many schools, the research community is still unsure whether homework actually provides a benefit for students . Recent research from CQUniversity indicates that homework for primary school students is of negligible value, and students are better served by spending this time engaged in structured play or improving their reading abilities.

Even for students in high school, the traditional write-and-check style of homework has shown very little benefit for students . After all, if you don’t know how to do a problem, then how is more practice going to help?

But shouldn’t the interactive and intelligent nature of digital devices make mathematics homework more beneficial for students?

More than a practice problem book

We started reviewing different educational sites and apps addressing mathematics and found they fell into three groups:

• traditional tutorials
• minimally digital tutorials
• digitally enhanced tutorials.

The more traditionally designed online maths tutorials, such as Basic Mathematics and Ezy Math Tutoring , provide a decent amount of depth in their instructions, but they lack a proper curriculum, and any sort of video tutorial or feedback mechanism.

The minimally digital tutorials, such as Study Ladder and Mathletics , have a well-designed curriculum, but lack quality tutorial videos and feedback on the work students do.

The digitally enhanced, such as Khan Academy and Maths Online , provide a well-designed curriculum for any age or grade level, comprehensive instructions, videos, and feedback on student work. They still, however, lack any sort of tutorial prompts during the quizzes.

Enhancing the ‘e’ in e-homework

As you can see, even the best mathematics technologies are not really technological at all – apart from the fact that students use them on a computer or a pad. All the different websites or apps aimed at helping student in mathematics are missing the technological components of technology.

The tools are not interactive. Questions do not increase or decrease in difficulty based on the student’s response to the last question. It would be useful if the practice questions students worked on intuitively increased in difficulty based on the success the student has on the previous question.

Read more: Why digital apps can be good gifts for young family members

None of the tools provide instructive cues to remind students of steps and procedures. And they don’t provide cognitive scaffolding when students are struggling, such as instant instructional advice if a student misses a question.

The tools also fail to provide teachers with data collected about the reason for errors. If they did, teachers could create a learning analysis overviews and specialised learning programs for each student they teach.

It’s clear we need better digital design in our education apps, and particularly those used without a teacher present. But how do we do that?

Bringing educators and technologists together

What need to establish a closer connection between the technologists and the educators.

The tech people need help designing the technology, and they need to design more than just the textbook as an app. Educators can help technologists envision what instruction could look like if the digital device had to do the teaching (and not just the practice) – and then build apps and sites that are innovative and interactive.

Read more: Online learning can prepare students for a fast-changing future – wherever they are

Educators also need to learn from the technologists so they can maximise the use of the devices in their classes. Many educators lack training to use the technological devices to their full potential.

Finally, digital technology designers must consult with educational psychology specialists who provide training for teachers.

We need new technology that isn’t just a copy of educational tools that already exist. Only then will we see the benefits of true digital homework.

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Technology can close achievement gaps, improve learning.

As school districts around the country consider investments in technology in an effort to improve student outcomes, a new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) finds that technology - when implemented properly -can produce significant gains in student achievement and boost engagement, particularly among students most at risk.

“This report makes clear that districts must have a plan in place for how they will use technology before they make a purchase,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. “It also underscores that replacing teachers with technology is not a successful formula. Instead, strong gains in achievement occur by pairing technology with classroom teachers who provide real-time support and encouragement to underserved students.”

Written by Professors Linda Darling-Hammond and Shelley Goldman at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and doctoral student Molly B. Zielezinski, the report is based on a review of more than 70 recent research studies and provides concrete examples of classroom environments in which technology has made a positive difference in the learning outcomes of students at risk of failing courses and dropping out.

Specifically, it identifies three important components to successfully using technology with at-risk students: interactive learning, use of technology to explore and create rather than to “drill and kill,” and the right blend of teachers and technology.

The report, Using Technology to Support At-Risk Students’ Learning , also identifies significant disparities in technology access and implementation between affluent and low-income schools. First, low-income teens and students of color are noticeably less likely to own computers and use the internet than their peers. Because of their students’ lack of access, teachers in high-poverty schools were more than twice likely (56 percent versus 21 percent) to say that their students’ lack of access to technology was a challenge in their classrooms. More dramatically, only 3 percent of teachers in high-poverty schools said that their students have the digital tools necessary to complete homework assignments, compared to 52 percent of teachers in more affluent schools.

Secondly, applications of technology in low-income schools typically involves a “drill and kill” approach in which computers take over for teachers and students are presented with information they are expected to memorize and are then tested on with multiple-choice questions. In more affluent schools, however, students tend to be immersed in more interactive environments in which material is customized based on students’ learning needs and teachers supplement instruction with technology to explain concepts, coordinate student discussion, and stimulate high-level thinking.

“When given access to appropriate technology used in thoughtful ways, all students—regardless of their respective backgrounds—can make substantial gains in learning and technological readiness,” said Darling-Hammond, the faculty director of SCOPE. “Unfortunately, applications of technology in schools serving the most disadvantaged students are frequently compromised by the same disparities in dollars, teachers, and instructional services that typically plague these schools. These disparities are compounded by the lack of access to technology in these students’ homes.”

The report includes several recommendations that could expand the use and impact of technology among at-risk high school youth:

• Technology access policies should aim for one-to-one computer access;
• Technology access policies should ensure that speedy internet connections are available;
• States, districts, and schools should favor technology designed to promote high levels of interactivity and engagement and make data available in multiple forms;
• Curriculum and instruction plans should enable students to use technology to create content as well as learn material; and
• Policymakers and educators should plan for “blended” learning environments, characterized by significant levels of teacher support and opportunities for interactions among students, as companions to technology use.

The report cautions that its recommendations must be accompanied by adequate professional learning opportunities for teachers on how to use the technology and pedagogies that are recommended, including technical assistance to help educators manage the hardware, software and connections to the Internet.

Darling-Hammond and Zielezinski joined Tom Murray, the Alliance’s state and district digital learning director, for a video webinar to discuss the report’s findings on Sept. 10. For archived video, please visit:   http://all4ed.org/webinar-event/sep-10-2014/ .

This story was written by the communications staff at the Alliance for Excellent Education in Washington, DC, and is also posted at  www.all4ed.org .

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The ‘Homework Gap’ Persists. Tech Equity Is One Big Reason Why

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Nearly a third of U.S. teenagers report facing at least one academic challenge related to lack of access to technology at home, the so-called “homework gap,” according to new survey from the Pew Research Center.

And that is the case even though nearly all K-12 students were back to in-person learning this school year, according to the Pew Research Center survey , conducted April 14 to May 4. The survey examines teens’ and parents’ views on virtual learning and the pandemic’s impact on academic achievement.

“More than two years after the COVID-19 outbreak forced school officials to shift classes and assignments online, teens continue to navigate the pandemic’s impact on their education and relationships, even while they experience glimpses of normalcy as they return to the classroom,” the report’s authors noted.

The survey found that 22 percent of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 said they often or sometimes have to do their homework on a cellphone, 12 percent said they “at least sometimes” are not able to complete homework assignments because they do not have reliable access to a computer or internet connection, and 6 percent said they have to use public Wi-Fi to do their homework “at least sometimes” because they don’t have an internet connection at home.

The “ homework gap ” is a term used to describe the difficulty students have in getting online at home to complete school assignments. It disproportionately impacts students in low-income households, students of color, and students in rural areas.

The Pew Research Center’s report found the homework gap remains a persistent problem. About 24 percent of teens who live in a household making less than $30,000 a year said they “at least sometimes” are not able to complete their homework because they do not have reliable access to a computer or internet connection, compared with 14 percent of those in a household making $30,000 to $74,999, and 8 percent of those in a household making $75,000 or more, the report found.

Teens whose parents report an annual income of less than $30,000 are also more likely to say they often or sometimes have to do homework on a cellphone or use public Wi-Fi for homework, compared with those living in higher-earning households, according to the survey.

Sixteen percent of Hispanic teens reported they “at least sometimes” aren’t able to complete homework because they lack reliable computer or internet access, compared with 7 percent of Black teens and 10 percent of white teens. Hispanic teens are also four times more likely than white teens to say the same about having to do their homework on a cellphone or using public Wi-Fi for homework, the report found.

When it comes to access to a computer, 20 percent of teens living in a household with an annual income of less than $30,000 reported not having access to a desktop or laptop at home.

Teens prefer learning in person

Eighty percent of teens said they attended school completely in person over the month prior to when the survey was administered, according to the report. Eleven percent said they attended school through a mix of online and in-person instruction, and 8 percent said they attended school completely online.

A majority of teens prefer in-person over virtual or hybrid learning. Sixty-five percent said they would prefer school to be completely in person after the COVID-19 outbreak is over, while 9 percent said they would prefer a completely online learning environment. Eighteen percent said they would prefer a mix of online and in-person instruction, according to the report.

While a majority of teens prefer in-person learning, there are some differences that emerge by race and ethnicity and household income. Seventy percent of white teens and 64 percent of Hispanic teens said they would prefer completely in-person learning after the COVID-19 outbreak, but that share drops to 51 percent among Black teens, according to the report.

Seventy-one percent of teens living in households earning $75,000 or more a year said they prefer for school to be completely in person after the pandemic is over. That share drops to 60 percent or less among those whose annual family income is less than $75,000.

Some teens worry about falling behind

When asked about COVID-19’s effect on their schooling, a majority of teens expressed little to no concern about falling behind in school due to disruptions caused by the outbreak. But Hispanic teens and teens from families with lower incomes were more likely to say they are “extremely” or “very” worried about falling behind in school due to COVID-19 disruptions.

Overall, 16 percent of teens said they are “extremely” or “very” worried they may have fallen behind in school because of COVID-19-related disturbances. Twenty-eight percent of Hispanic teens said they are “extremely” or “very” worried that they may have fallen behind, compared with 19 percent of Black teens, and 11 percent of white teens. And 46 percent of teens from households making less than $75,000 annually reported concerns about falling behind in school, compared with 13 percent of teens from households making more than $75,000 annually.

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Is it only about technology? The interplay between educational technology for mathematics homework, teaching practice, and students’ activities

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• Published: 19 May 2023
• Volume 11 , pages 743–762, ( 2024 )

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• Slaviša Radović   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8840-6053 1  

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Current research on the use of digital technology in education has overgrown. It is becoming clear that technology will not unfold its pedagogical potential outlined in the literature on its own. To harness its full benefits, it is paramount to thoroughly understand the educational context and underlying pedagogical principles. This research reports how an educational technology can support students’ knowledge development from homework mathematics learning practices for 11 to 14 year-old students. The article describes the shift learning goals from producing the correct answer to understanding how to address current and future mathematical challenges as an important interaction between educational technology, teaching practices and student learning activities. The study revealed specific features of technology integration with mathematics teaching and learning practices. The findings highlighted the effectiveness of digital support for homework activities, indicating that there were benefits only when students and teachers used the full range of features and engaged in the process. Finally, the report provides practical tips and ground rules that can contribute to the successful implementation of educational technology for homework activities.

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Introduction

From very earliest studies it has been shown that technology-enhanced mathematics education can significantly contribute to various aspects of students’ learning process and their learning outcomes. Current research regarding the use of digital technology has overgrown (e.g., Ball et al., 2018 ; Drijvers, 2019 ; Hillmayr et al., 2020 ). It ranges from: providing quick and reliable feedback (Drijvers, 2019 ); supporting students self-regulation and analysis of their mistakes (Radović et al., 2019 ); creating simulations for exploring mathematical problems (Hillmayr et al., 2020 ); seeing relations between algebraic and geometric representations of objects (Godwin & Sutherland, 2004 ); learning with applets and dynamic images (Ball et al., 2018 ); and enabling students to practice various skills and techniques at the speed and pace that suits them (Metwally et al., 2021 ).

The results of empirical studies have recognized numerous pearls (e.g., Drijvers, 2019 ), perils (e.g., Hillmayr et al., 2020 ), challenges (Bray & Tangney, 2017 ), as well as the opportunities that technology-enhanced learning brings for both students and teachers (e.g., Hillmayr et al., 2020 ). Metwally et al. ( 2021 ) argued in their research that technology has the potential to enhance cognitive potentials of students, support their development of problem-solving and higher thinking skills, and expand students’ knowledge. Moreover, technology in learning is often correlated with increase of students’ motivation during learn (Radović et al., 2019 ). Radović and Passey ( 2016 ) argued that the responsibilities of learning are shifted to students so that they develop their skills of self-management and self-assessment. However, there are many factors with an impact on the outcome of technology integration into mathematics learning (Bray & Tangney, 2017 ). Studies often emphasize technology design, curriculum specificities, teacher practices, and underlaying instructional design (Godwin & Sutherland, 2004 ; Lim & Oakley, 2013 ). To harness its full potential, it is of utmost importance to thoroughly understand the educational context and underlying pedagogical principles (Drijvers, 2019 ; Hillmayr et al., 2020 ). To focus the discussion of previous research on the educational problem that is central to the research outlined in this manuscript, we will concentrate on a specific aspect of technology enhanced learning practice: homework in mathematics.

Researchers have studied various technological approaches developed for homework, including online homework platforms that automatically assign homework, management systems that improve the efficacy of homework organization and control, and anti-plagiarism systems that reduce copying activity and increase engagement during homework (Zhai et al. ( 2023 ). Other researchers have introduced different tools that enhance the process, such as MathAid (Viberg et al., 2023 ) or ASSISTments (Murphy et al., 2020 ). The outcome of these initiatives reviled affirmative characteristics that include providing feedback on answers and analysing mistakes (Ceviker et al., 2022 ), adaptive questions with appropriate levels of knowledge and difficulty (Zhai et al., 2023 ), and personalized study plans based on the collected data targeting each student's individual strengths and weaknesses (Serhan & Almeqdadi, 2020 ).

Moreover, technology for homework has made it possible for students to practice and improve their understanding at their own pace and comfort (Ceviker et al., 2022 ; Diara, 2023 ; Magalhães et al., 2020 ), with automatic feedback immediately available (Diara, 2023 ; Zhai et al., 2023 ). This also enables teachers to shift their focus from grading to adapting their instruction to meet students’ needs (Murphy et al., 2020 ). For instance, teachers can analyse common errors and misconceptions among students and modify their following teaching classes accordingly (Ceviker et al., 2022 ; Diara, 2023 ; Murphy et al., 2020 ).

Nonetheless, integrating technology into mathematics homework comes with several challenges. Viberg et al. ( 2023 ) stressed out the need to shift the teacher's role from being an instructor to that of a facilitator, which requires a planned and structured approach to instructions. In recent research, Murphy et al. ( 2020 ) recognized that the quality of homework is perceived higher by students when the homework process supports their learning and is relevant to what happens in class, including teacher follow-up. Other scholars emphasize the importance of relevant and innovative teaching and learning methods, highlighting the challenge for teachers to design effective learning experiences that incorporate technologies for homework with appropriate pedagogical methods (Magalhães et al., 2020 ; Viberg et al., 2023 ).

It is becoming clear that technology will not unfold its pedagogical potential, outlined in the literature, on its own. Rather, effective and efficient integration of digital technology is about the instructional interplay between educational technology, teaching strategies, and student learning practices (Bray & Tangney, 2017 ; Metwally et al., 2021 ). In order to achieve a comprehensive understanding (Viberg et al., 2023 ), the next section of this paper will establish the theoretical and research foundation for homework activities, examining both the advantages and challenges faced by both students and teachers. “ Research questions for this study ” section will then focus on defining the research questions, exploring how technology can be best utilized to enhance the benefits of homework activities. The subsequent section, “ Research Methods ” section, will introduce the research methodology, including the study's context, as well as the experimental and control learning environments. The following sections will present data analysis and research findings, concluding with a discussions, limitations, and conclusions.

The term “homework” refers to tasks assigned to students that are meant to be completed outside of regular school hours (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Magalhães et al., 2020 ). In Serbia’s education system, homework serves an important pedagogical purpose with several prominent characteristics: it is assigned after each lesson, typically takes students between half an hour to an hour to complete, aims to help students review and reinforce the material learned in class, while also allowing teachers to identify areas where students may be struggling or misunderstanding the concepts being taught. Teachers and educators have long viewed homework as an important way for students to practice and reinforce material taught in class (Ceviker et al., 2022 ). However, the value of homework continues to be debated both in the scientific community and in broader society, particularly in the United States (Gill & Scholssman, 2004 ; Murphy et al. ( 2020 )). Interestingly, historical reports from the late 19th and early twentieth centuries reveal that homework was not always viewed as a critical component of the learning process. Critics referred to it as “mechanical schooling,” with some even suggesting that it could be detrimental to student learning (Heffernan, 2019 , p. 80). Gill and Schlossman ( 2004 ) note that the most negative attitudes toward homework were present in 1901, when California law abolished homework for children under 15 and limited it in public high schools. However, during the space race of the 1960s, homework became more widespread and was mandated at all levels of education, with policies dictating the number of hours students were required to work (Cooper et al., 2006 ).

In current mathematics education and research, data on homework point to both positive and undesirable influences on students’ learning and learning outcomes (Heffernan, 2019 ; Metwally et al., 2021 ; Scheerens et al., 2013 ). Existing literature indicates that traditional, paper-based homework assignments may be viewed by students as a mundane aspect of their education, often leading to negative attitudes towards them (Ceviker et al., 2022 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Magalhães et al., 2020 ). This can lead to procrastination, frustration, and burden to complete assignments, which can lead to copycat reactions from students (Magalhães et al., 2020 ). Studies also imply that student interest in homework can often diminish, especially when its characteristics are not balanced (e.g., amount, difficulty, pedagogical value, instructional rationale) (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Corno & Xu, 2004 ).

Despite these perils, homework is still valued by students (Murphy et al., 2020 ). Several literature reviews (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fan et al., 2017 ; Magalhães et al., 2020 ) recognized several categories of benefits: (1) direct impact on learning and achievement, (2) connecting math learning at home and at school, and (3) increasing teachers’ knowledge of students' thinking and understanding.

Learning outcomes

Numerous research studies comparing students who regularly do homework and those who do not have shown that completing homework has a direct positive impact on learning outcomes (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fan et al., 2017 ). Homework is highly valued for its potential to develop time management skills, study habits, self-regulation, and lead to better academic performance and higher grades (Corno & Xu, 2004 ; Fan et al., 2017 ). According to Huyen Tham et al. ( 2020 ), students have reported that homework can facilitate the development of a self-study routine, reduce stress levels, and enhance their sense of learning autonomy. A review study by Cooper et al. ( 2006 ) found a positive correlation of approximately 0.60 SD between homework completion and academic achievement. Although a more recent meta-analysis by Baş et al. ( 2017 ) found a smaller average effect of around 0.20, it was still significant. However, the amount of time spent on homework is still a topic of scientific debate. Metwally et al. ( 2021 ) conducted a review that showed a positive relationship between homework time and student achievement, including retention of knowledge, exam and final grades, homework assignments completed, and overall performance. However, as noted by Scheerens et al. ( 2013 ), who reviewed 128 research articles, the results are inconclusive, with 32% of studies showing negative effects, 33% showing no significant effects, and 35% showing positive effects.

Connecting mathematics learning at home and in schools

Homework not only has academic value, but also fosters student responsibility and blurs the line between formal and informal learning contexts, facilitating knowledge acquisition both inside and outside the classroom (Radović & Passey, 2016 ; Radović et al., 2019 ). This is demonstrated in the findings of Murphy et al., ( 2020 ), Diara ( 2023 ), and Ceviker et al. ( 2022 ) research, which identified benefits such as a shift toward self-regulated learning; increased flexibility and autonomy for students; and better connection between home and school activities. Homework breaks down the traditional boundary between home and school learning, allowing classroom materials and educational obligations to be applied to informal learning situations (Fig.  1 ).

An overview of learning settings and learning activities (Radović & Passey, 2016 )

Enhancing teachers’ knowledge of students’ thinking from analyzing their homework

As Cooper and colleagues ( 2006 ) argued, one way to gain insight into students’ knowledge and skills can be done through evaluation of homework. Moreover, it can help teachers not only deepen their understanding of students’ way of thinking and level of understanding of mathematical concepts, but also in planning instructions (Ceviker et al., 2022 ). Such an approach allows teachers to respond in a timely manner to clarify perceived ambiguities, adapt homework assignments and follow-up classroom discussions to students’ needs and to demonstrated misconceptions (poorly formed, fragile or missing concepts) (Murphy et al. ( 2020 )). In addition, analysing students’ homework allows teachers to be aware of individual needs of each student (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Radović et al., 2019 ; Zhai et al., 2023 ). Murphy et al. ( 2020 ) found that the type of intervention or tools used can impact teachers’ ability to target specific problems during their classroom review of homework.

Homework copying between students

Despite the potential benefits of completing homework, students in the traditional learning settings and paper-based homework often resort to copying it (Diara, 2023 ; Zhai et al., 2023 ). Academic dishonesty undermines the student’s integrity and places a burden on teachers who must invest time and effort into preventing it or handling the aftermath when their efforts fail (Emerson & Smith, 2022 ). According to Sweet’s ( 2017 ) report, 80% of surveyed students admitted to copying homework at least once a month. Similarly, Felder's ( 2011 ) study found that 49% of surveyed students engaged in unauthorized collaboration on homework. Students often justify their misconduct as a means to manage their workload given their time and resource constraints (Magalhães et al., 2020 ). Other reasons cited by Palazzo et al. ( 2010 ) include difficult homework problems that require too much time and a lack of interest in the learning that comes with homework. Felder ( 2011 ) suggests that this behavior is more prevalent in academic environments that prioritize students’ academic performance over the quality and quantity of their knowledge acquisition.

When students copy homework, teachers lack accurate information about their work, which can lead to incorrect assumptions about their mathematical abilities and the causes of their errors (Palazzo et al., 2010 ; Radović et al., 2019 ). This creates an ongoing challenge for teachers and researchers to develop more effective approaches to encourage and incentivize students to complete homework regularly, as well as to assist teachers in analyzing homework to better understand students' thought processes and plan their instruction accordingly (Heffernan, 2019 ).

Research questions for this study

Numerous studies examined the empirical relationship between homework and academic achievement, motivation, and self-regulation (Heffernan, 2019 ; Magalhães et al., 2020 ). Studies have also analyzed practices such as copying homework and possible remedies (Felder, 2011 ; Palazzo et al., 2010 ; Radović et al., 2019 ). Another strand of literature considered educational technology as an enabling tool for students’ homework engagement and academic gains (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ; Hillmayr et al., 2020 ; Murphy et al., 2020 ; Radović & Passey, 2016 ).

In researching the instructional interplay between educational technology, teaching strategies, and student learning practices, this study operates under two main postulates while acknowledging the potential benefits and drawbacks of homework. The first postulate is that the use of technology in education can brings many benefits, but vary in terms of implementation, student activities, and the teacher’s role. The second postulate is that homework is not necessarily effective, and its success depends on its characteristics and pedagogical implementation. This study was conducted to address a gap in research and evaluate students' learning gains in different learning environments where technology was implemented, and students’ and teachers’ activities were affected by the method of homework technology implementation. The study sought to answer one main research question:

RQ: To what extent do student learning outcomes differ in different learning environments where technology was implemented and students’ and teachers’ activities were affected by the method of homework technology implementation?

Research methods

To evaluate different instructional interplays between technology and homework activities this study employs mix method research design (quantitative and qualitative) with pre and post testing. Three variants of learning environments were designed: (1) Traditional Homework (control group, CON); (2) Technology supported homework with final solutions (experimental group 1, EXP1); and (3) Technology supported homework with explanations (experimental group 2, EXP2). The detailed differences will be explained in the “ Treatment and the context of the study ” Section. Treatment and the context of the study.

The study was conducted during the period of 8 weeks. Multiple data sources were used: PreTest assessment (initial knowledge test), every second weeks’ knowledge test (progress test), and at the end of the study PostTest assessment (assess students' overall knowledge acquired during the intervention time). Additionally, student individual responses to homework tasks were collected, and used in qualitative part of the analysis.

Participants

This study took place in four different elementary schools in Serbia. Participants were 325 students from 12 different classroom cohorts who gave written consent to participle in the study. There were 165 fifth, 103 sixth, 35 seventh and 22 eighth grade students (from 11- to 14-year-old). Classes were randomly assigned to one of three conditions within each school: CON group ( n  = 120), EXP1 group ( n  = 97), and EXP2 group ( n  = 101).

Treatment and the context of the study

The experimental conditions were three variations of the mathematics learning environment. The different interactions between educational technology, teaching practices and students’ learning activities are shown in Table 1 .

In the control condition, students did homework as usual, without using educational technology. At the end of each lesson, the teacher provided students with a list of homework assignments that were the same for all students. In the subsequent lesson, during the introduction (usually lasting a few minutes), the teacher briefly reviewed the students' paper-based solutions, addressed any issues with the tasks, resolved any doubts raised by students, and proceeded with the scheduled lesson material.

Students in the experimental groups (EXP1 and EXP2) completed their homework on the eZbirka web platform, which differed from the control group in several ways. Firstly, the tasks were slightly randomized for each student, making it difficult for them to copy from others. Secondly, the platform provided automatic feedback on students’ submissions, allowing them to self-assess and compare their answers with rubrics. This feature allowed students to practice as many times as they wanted. In contrast, the control group completed homework as usual, with no automatic feedback and no opportunity for redoing their work. Teachers in the experimental groups also had the advantage of checking students’ results before the next lesson, which enabled them to address any issues or concerns before class began. This personalized approach allowed teachers to adjust their teaching plans in advance according to the needs of their students.

The experimental conditions differed in the type of solution submitted by students. In EXP1, students provided short answers, enabling teachers to check if the homework was completed and whether the answers were correct. However, teachers were unable to determine the nature of any errors made by the students (such as calculation errors or misconceptions). In contrast, students in EXP2 not only provided the final answer but also detailed the steps they took to arrive at the solution and the reasoning behind their chosen problem-solving strategy. If they were unable to solve the problem, they also explained the reason for their difficulty. This provided valuable insight to the teachers, who could use it to address any misunderstandings in the next lesson.

Each homework assignment comprised of six tasks intended to aid students in comprehending the material taught after each lesson. The tasks were adjusted to align with the curriculum and encompassed various levels of complexity and mathematics competencies. Using the eZbirka web platform (depicted in Fig.  1 ), students typed in their solutions for each task in the designated answer field. The answers were then saved in the database and promptly available for teachers to review and analyze. Upon submission, students were given feedback and had the option to self-assess their solutions. If the feedback helped them enhance their learning and comprehension, they could attempt another homework assignment with different tasks Fig.  2 .

An example of homework for the teaching unit “Addition and subtraction of fractions with the same denominator” for students in the eighth grade

Analysis of knowledge tests result

Since the data were normally distributed, a parametric test was performed. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) were used to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference between the study groups in terms of knowledge developed. The significant results, adjusted with the correction for multiple testing, were further examined by post hoc tests and pairwise comparisons between groups.

The comparison of the mean values and effect of the different learning environments on students’ learning performance and test results are shown in Table 2 . Although the participants in the Exp 2 group tended to score higher on the PreTest, the ANOVA test showed no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of students' performance on the PreTest.

Regarding students’ results on the assessment of knowledge during study (knowledge test 1–4), we can observe some significant differences between the groups. As for knowledge test 1, the analysis of the results shows that the students of the three groups achieved relatively similar results (Table 2 and Fig.  3 ). After the first 2 weeks, the results of the experimental groups begin to improve (with several significant statistical differences depending on the research condition). As for the Knowledge Test 2, the ANOVA showed that there was a statistically significant difference in the mean test score between groups ( F (2, 296) = 3.97, p  = 0.02). The post hoc multiple comparisons test showed that the mean value of the test score differed significantly only between the control group and EXP2 ( Mean Diff  = 0.525, p  = 0.02). As for knowledge test 3, analysis of the results showed no statistical difference. For knowledge test 4, however, the ANOVA showed that there was again a statistically significant difference in the mean test score between the groups ( F (2, 111) = 3.8, p  = 0.02). The post hoc multiple comparison test showed that the mean value of the test score was again significantly different only between the control group and EXP2 ( Mean Diff  = 0.878, p  = 0.02).

Comparison of mean scores of Knowledge tests performance by group

Finally, the posttest scores of the three groups of students were compared (Table 2 ). The results of the ANOVA showed a statistically significant difference in the mean test score between the groups with respect to students’ final test knowledge ( F (2, 313) = 4.47, p  = 0.01). The post hoc multiple comparisons test showed that the mean value of the test score was again significantly different only between the control group and EXP2 ( Mean Diff  = 0.574, p  = 0.01). Students in the Technology-assisted homework with explanations (EXP2) group developed significantly more knowledge.

Pearson's rank correlation was performed to determine the relationship between the knowledge test results of students in EXP2. The analysis suggested that students' results were completely correlated (Table 3 ). Increase in knowledge on the knowledge test was correlated with higher results on the final test.

Analysis of student homework task solving description

The purpose of this qualitative part of the study is to analyze and illustrate students’ errors and misconceptions while working on homework tasks (Prakitipong & Nakamura, 2006 ; Trance, 2013 ). To this end, Newman’s Error analysis shame was used to code errors based on four types: (1) Comprehension (errors in understanding the task), (2) Transformation (error in problem transformation), (3) Mathematical processing (errors in process skills), and (4) Encoding errors (errors in writing answers) (Newman, 1977 , 1983 ; Trance, 2013 ). From homework solutions of students in the EXP2 group, we selected characteristic tasks and answers to illustrate the extent to which teachers were able to analyze and classify student errors as a reference for choosing appropriate teaching strategies for the next lesson to reduce and even eliminate student errors and misconceptions. This process could not be replicated with homework solutions from the EXP1 participant group because the students’ thinking process and problem-solving steps were often missing.

Homework task: comprehension errors

With comprehension errors, students have problems with misunderstanding the requirements of the task. They do not understand the meaning of symbols or questions, or they misunderstand mathematical terms. It also includes the inability of students to determine what is known and what is required of the problem (Newman, 1977 , 1983 ). One of the most common ways of making these types of errors was selecting information incorrectly, or not being able to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information (e.g., using all the information provided in a task or neglecting relevant information), or not being able to recall information that was not provided directly in the task.

The student solved all the previous tasks in the same lesson, where he had to calculate and handle systems of equations. In this case, the student was confused because one of variables was missing. Here an error occurred because student was not able to gather required information that was not directly provided in the task.

This lesson incorporates solving real-world examples of equations that contain fractions. The student demonstrates pure mathematical knowledge of solving equations, but also a degree of misunderstanding of the relationship between the unit of measurement and the measured value.

Homework task: transformation errors

The transformation error is an error when the student incorrectly transforms the problem into a mathematical model such as equation, picture, graph, or table. This type of error is also noted when students try to answer the task without using all the mathematical procedures. It also occurs when students use an incorrect operation or mathematical concept without analyzing whether it is possible.

Student made the proportion correctly, was able to solve it, but did not understand how to answer the authentic and real-world question—learner did not understand the mathematical concept of percentage. The result reported as a solution suggests that the student answered even without analyzing whether the solution was possible.

Homework task: mathematical processing errors

Errors of this type correspond to students’ failure to perform mathematical rules or procedures, or lack of practice in solving mathematical prblem. Process skill error is when student using the correct procedure but making mistakes in calculation or computing. These include errors in solving algebraic expressions, or functions, errors in arithmetic and mathematical interpretation.

The teacher may notice the student’s handling of fractions (three-fifths of 400 does not equal 220), but the lack of understanding of the mathematical requirements (in the second part of the answer “5/8 equals 250” is calculated from the original value noted in the task requirement—400, and not from what is left form calculation).

The learner, in this case, self-defining a problem in knowledge. This error corresponds to students' failure to perform the mathematical process of grouping sums.

Homework task: mathematical encoding errors

Encoding error is the student’s error in writing the answer correctly, unable to show the truth of the answer or validate the mathematical solution in terms of the real-world problem, or not writing the conclusion of the answer. This error is often reflected in student’s impossible or unrealistic answer.

Although the student showed that he understood the requirements of the assignment, his solution suggests that he was unable to correctly apply the mathematical laws to solve the real problem. The solution given by the student cannot be implemented. The characteristic of the diameter is that it passes through the center of the circle, but without knowing where the center is—it is impossible to determine the diameter.

This is an example of the student’s failure to interpret a mathematical answer as a solution that fits into the real-world context of a task. His answer of 5 kg is, within the context of this task, an answer that makes no sense.

The literature by Cooper et al. ( 2006 ), Heffernan ( 2019 ), Bray and Tangney ( 2017 ), Radović et al. ( 2019 ), and others suggest that students and teachers should utilize technology to enhance the homework process. However, to facilitate wider adoption of technology, it is essential to provide teachers with adequate support to develop appropriate teaching strategies and promote effective interactions (Viberg et al., 2023 ). The goal of the present study was to provide empirical evidence on how to optimize learning outcomes for students in both home and school settings (Bray & Tangney, 2017 ; Hillmayr et al., 2020 ) by researching the interaction between educational technology, teaching practices, and student learning activities. The study yielded both qualitative and quantitative findings, which provide several important points of discussion.

The present study found statistically significant differences in students’ grades between the Technology-assisted homework with explanations (EXP2) group and the Traditional homework group. This was demonstrated through two knowledge tests during the study, as well as the final knowledge test, at the end of the experimental period. To some extent, this result is consistent with prior research on assigning and collecting student homework. For instance, Murphy et al. ( 2020 ) noted that information about common wrong answers for each task helped teachers to address students’ cognitive issues and promote better comprehension. In the present study, students who provided explanations for their problem-solving activities (EXP2), enabled teachers to better identify those who struggled with various aspects of the homework and mathematical concepts. As Murphy et al. ( 2020 ) observed in an earlier study, providing more and better explanations may be especially helpful for lower-performing students. One could interpret students’ activities as providing them with more time for self-reflection and awareness of their understanding. By writing down the steps they took to arrive at a solution, as well as the reasoning behind their chosen problem-solving strategy, or explaining the reason for their difficulty, students were able to clarify better their understanding.

However, the present study brings another important result to be discussed. While technology can be advantageous for homework activities, its benefits may not always be statistically significant for students’ learning. Specifically, the present study found no statistically significant differences in learning outcomes between students who used the same technologies for homework but with writing only final solutions (EXP1) and those who completed traditional homework. This outcome suggests that effective practices must be developed through interaction between teachers and students, and as Viberg et al. ( 2023 ) have noted, the development of these practices should be led by teachers. Moreover, according to Zhai et al. ( 2023 ), the effectiveness of technology depends on the role of the teacher and students’ activities. Therefore, for technology integration in education it is essential to have a comprehensive understanding of the educational context, pedagogical principles, and lesson design. This aligns with previous research on the subject, which emphasizes the challenges of effectively integrating digital technology into the mathematics classroom (Bray & Tangney, 2017 ; Hillmayr et al., 2020 ). Later, we will discuss several specific practical features of technology integration in mathematics education during homework based on the study's findings.

The qualitative component of the study showcased how teachers could effectively analyze and comprehend students’ errors and misconceptions while reviewing their work. In the EXP2 group, teachers were able to adjust their instruction to cater to their students’ needs by scrutinizing patterns of misconceptions in homework, which was not feasible for students’ homework in the EXP1 group. Through a systematic process that involves identifying the errors and misunderstandings’ patterns, analysing their causes, adapting lessons to meet students' needs, and implementing corrective action, teachers made significant progress in comprehending and addressing students’ difficulties in learning mathematics (Murphy et al., 2020 ; Viberg et al., 2023 ). This study demonstrated that this pedagogical process of teacher was highly beneficial for student learning.

Limitations

Several limitations of this study must be considered. First, we only measured students’ direct learning outcomes—knowledge development. Studies are needed that use measures other significant variables than grades, and take into account motivation, satisfaction during learning, development of self-regulatory skills, etc. Second, in this study we did not evaluate the teachers’ perspective on the process, which may help to better understand the overall effect of technology integration in education. The third limitation pertains to the implementation of technologies in homework specifically for mathematics courses. Therefore, generalizing the findings of this research to evaluate its effectiveness in other STEAM subjects (such as science, technology, engineering, and the arts) or other learning activities cannot be confirmed. The fourth limitation is the relatively short period of experimentation, which was limited to 8 weeks. To obtain more accurate results, it would be worthwhile to conduct a longitudinal study that spans an entire semester or academic year. It is also essential to recognize the strong possibility of the existence of unobserved confounding variables, including unobserved mediators that may be correlated with targeted homework activities and student achievement, such as homework time, number of tasks completed, homework completion rates, and cognitive load during students’ learning.

In the future research, we will try to apply this research method and expand this work to include larger samples of students and teachers to allow for more comprehensive findings.

Conclusions

In conclusion, this study has contributed to the field in two significant ways. Firstly, we conducted a rigorous experiment that intersected three crucial elements of contemporary education: (a) technology, (b) mathematics homework practices, and (c) teacher-student interactions. The results demonstrate that this overlap provides a promising area for intervention in the ongoing pursuit of enhancing students’ mathematics achievement, as well as the teachers’ activities of identifying patterns of errors and misunderstandings, analysing their causes, adapting lessons to suit students’ needs, and implementing corrective measures. Secondly, we show that technology cannot independently establish effective connections between learning environments and situations. The critical factors are the pedagogical activities that the technology supports, how it is implemented in the learning process, and the teaching approach employed (Bray & Tangney, 2017 ; Drijvers, 2019 ; Radović et al., 2019 ). It is essential to have a comprehensive understanding of the educational context, pedagogical principles, and lesson design.

Taken together, the findings of this study suggest four practical recommendations that can contribute to the successful implementation of technology for homework activities (also presented in Table 1 and Fig.  4 ):

Provide opportunities for students to articulate their problem-solving methods and thought processes. Students should use language that reflects their comprehension of the subject matter and the complexity of the concept or problem they are describing.

Use students’ answers to gain valuable insights into their cognitive processes, identify any misconceptions, and assess their level of understanding. This information can then be used to tailor the teaching approach and provide targeted guidance that addresses student needs.

Provide students with timely feedback on their homework performance or rubric for self-assessment to enhance their learning experience. By receiving immediate feedback, students can identify areas of strengths and weaknesses and take steps to address any gaps in their understanding.

Allocate sufficient time in the next class to briefly summarize the main errors and misconceptions that students exhibited. Adjust teaching approach to address common areas of difficulty and create a classroom culture that values learning from mistakes and encourages students to ask questions and seek clarification.

The schema of successful implementation of technology for homework activities (Radović et al., 2019 )

Data availability

Not applicable.

Code availability

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Radović, S. Is it only about technology? The interplay between educational technology for mathematics homework, teaching practice, and students’ activities. J. Comput. Educ. 11 , 743–762 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-023-00277-9

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How Can Technology Improve Education?

When used well, technology can improve education for students, parents, and teachers. While we often hear about the negative effects of excessive screen time and the dangers of social media, we don’t always hear about the positive ways technology makes a difference in our lives, especially when it comes to learning. 

The “old-fashioned” pencil-and-paper methods of learning are still needed in the classroom. But technology introduces lots of great tools to help students learn more efficiently.

6 Ways Technology Helps in Education

1. it helps students learn more (and better).

Students learn in different ways. In a traditional lesson, a teacher presents material, and students all engage with it in the same way. The entire class is expected to move through the content at the same pace. As you can imagine, there’s very little room for freedom when teaching thirty students the same things in the same ways during the same time frames. But that doesn’t have to be the case.

Online tools give students more flexible and personalized learning experiences. Some students might use a YouTube video tutorial to better understand a concept. Others might complete an online activity or game that provides instant feedback so they know if they’re on the right track. Students who understand the material right away can find more difficult problems or activities to supplement their knowledge, while those who need more practice can use a different activity that provides more repetition. In other words, technology offers  variety  to students in a way that a typical classroom lecture cannot.

Technology also motivates students to learn. Through gamification in education , they look forward to having time on their devices to explore and learn things through websites, videos, apps, and games. Students can learn and have fun at the same time, which helps them stay engaged with the material.

2. It helps parents stay connected and help their children

When technology played a minimal role in education, parents had very little insight into what was happening in their students’ education beyond what they were told at home or during parent-teacher conferences. With the help of technology, parents can be much more informed and involved in their children’s learning process. When parents play a role in education, students are more likely to succeed and be motivated to learn.

Technology has considerably improved communication between parents and schools. Parents have access to real-time updates on their children’s grades, attendance, and even classroom behavior reports. And if a parent needs to reach out to a teacher or administrator, they can do so with a quick email or message through the school’s LMS (Learning Managment System).

3. It provides handy tools and opportunities for teachers

Teachers enjoy technology because it offers plenty of (mostly free) tools to enhance classroom learning, communication with parents, and their own professional development. Teachers can find materials that they can present to students or sites that can help students practice new material. 

Like parents, teachers benefit enormously from technology. They can easily email an entire class or send a text message to all parents simultaneously. If a teacher needs to reach a specfic parent, they’re only a few clicks away. When a teacher needs help from colleagues, she can send a quick email or join an online forum to share ideas and ask questions.

Don’t think technology just benefits students — it also gives teachers the opportunity to pursue professional development from the comfort of their device. Nowadays, university classes and entire degree programs can be taken online. There are also websites where teachers can help and support one another. Thousands of articles are at their fingertips to help them learn about what is changing in the field of education and discover some of the best practices are from around the world.

4. It introduces more “teachers” to the classroom

As the typical classroom size continues to grow, technology provides a way to make it seem a bit smaller and more manageable. Students can get instant feedback from online resources even if the classroom teacher cannot be available for an entire class all at once.

Computers can provide students various levels of instruction based on their individual learning needs. When classes were smaller, a teacher could differentiate individual lessons for each student. With larger classes, technology can help teachers differentiate instruction for all students in the classroom.. There are plenty of programs, sites, and tutorials that offer students instant help whether they’re at home or at school. These help teachers provide individual instruction and give them time to work one on one with students while others advance at their own pace using online tools.

Students can also tutor classmates with the use of technology. They can collaborate and ask questions in real time, both at home and at school through online discussion forums or Slack channels set up by their instructors. Technology allows students to help each other and work together across to better understand the material. In that sense, they can sometimes serve as the (supervised) teachers — and learning through instruction is known to be highly effective for mastering a topic and solving problems.

5. It offers more opportunities for project-based learning

Gone are the days of lugging a giant poster board back and forth for every project. Nowadays, technology allows students to engage in project-based and inquiry-based learning . Students can work in groups or as individuals, and by using online platforms teachers and group members can chime in and provide feedback in real time. Students can live edit together and simultaneously create presentations or group papers in programs like Google Docs.

These projects help students use more critical thinking skills and less rote memorization. Students have access to unlimited resources for research and learning about any particular subject. They can use their research to propose solutions to real-life problems rather than creating a poster board of regurgitated facts. Technology also gives students more freedom in how they want to complete an assignment — like making a blog, website, video, and more.

6. It can save money

Although devices such as Chromebooks, iPads, and computers all cost quite a bit of money, they’re worth the investment when you consider what they’re able to provide. In the long term, these devices offer so many tools that they more than pay for themselves.

Districts can save money on paper by using more electronic documents. Emails can replace many of the papers that were once sent home to parents. Teachers can upload assignments to learning management systems instead of using copiers to print out packets of materials.

Less money can be spent on supplementary materials because there are many free options available to teachers online. Many schools nowadays opt to buy e-books, which can be more convenient for students and don’t need maintenance or storage. Teachers can also save time and money by taking students on virtual field trips using virtual reality programs that are available for free online.

Technology Is a Powerful Tool to Help Students Learn

Technology helps students learn better. Teachers, students, and parents all benefit from free online resources, personalized learning materials, and opportunities for advanced learning. School districts can adopt new technology knowing that they’re making a sound investment in the future of their students. After all, technology’s not going anywhere — it’s a powerful asset in any modern classroom.

This article was adapted from a blog post initially developed by the education technology company Classcraft, which was acquired by HMH in 2023. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of HMH.

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Distracted by Technology: Focusing Attention on Homework

By Michael Howard

Does your child stay up all night doing homework ? Is he or she often texting or online while doing homework or studying? Is it possible for students to study and do their homework effectively while being distracted by technology? Is focusing attention on homework really all that important? It’s just homework, right? 

Welcome to the 21st century. A world filled with distractions every where you turn. How is it even possible to get homework done at all, let alone focus on doing homework without being distracted by a wide variety of electronic gadgets. Back in the not so distant past, you might have heard a kid saying "It doesn't matter if I have the TV on while I do my homework. It's not like I'm studying for a test." Today, it's a bit more complicated as students and their smart phones are inseparable. What might at first glance seem harmelss, doing homework or studying while watching TV, texting or checking social media can actually impair learning the material as well as lower test scores. Research has shown that it's one of the worst study habits a student can develop.

Is There an App For That ?

With nearly everyone over the age of 10 having a cell phone and access to the internet these days, it's quite common to find students dividing their attention between texting, checking social media websites and surfing the internet while doing homework and studying for exams. Given that text messaging is the way many students communicate with each other, it's not easy for parents to explain to them that when it's time to do homework or study for an exam it's necessary to turn their phone off.

In all likelihood, they will argue about this as s tudents of all ages seem to have a misconception that they can pay attention to more than one thing at a time and that multitasking is an effective way to do homework or study for a test. How are you, their parent, going to respond? With research. In this blog post, w e reviewed the most up to date research that we could find on the subject of multitasking to give parents a better understanding of what it takes to be a successful student.

What Does Research Show About Studying While Distracted by Technology?

In a study conducted by Dr. Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University - Dominguez Hills, students were observed studying for a 15 minute period where they were told to "study something important.” He found was that students generally started to lose focus after about three minutes. On average "students only spent about 65 percent of the observation period actually studying." That’s not exactly what you might consider “quality” studying time.

Dr. Rosen did another study where he surveyed high school students and asked them how often they switch from studying to doing something related to technology such as checking email, Facebook, texting or watching TV. Across all grade levels, 80% of students reported that they switch between studying and technology somewhat often to very often. Rosen calls this “Continuous Partial Attention,” meaning that most of the time, students are not focused on studying but rather are moving their attention back and forth between studying and various forms of technology. As you might expect, students who were the most distracted generally had the most windows open on their computers. Students who were less distracted had higher GPAs than students who switched back and forth fairly often and those who regularly check Facebook or text messages. Students who had strategies for studying also had higher GPAs according to Rosen’s findings.

Rosen explains, “Young people’s technology use is really about quelling anxiety...they don’t want to miss out or to be the last person to hear some news (or like or comment about a post online).” One of the major problems with texting and posting on Facebook and other social media sites while in class and/or studying, is that "they draw on the same mental resources—using language, parsing meaning—demanded by schoolwork." Ultimately, he concludes, if we want students to learn and perform at their best, smart phones and other online distractions must be managed.

Can Doing Homework While Distracted by Technology Affect Test Scores?

In another study of 8-18 year old students done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly one third of the students surveyed confessed that when they were doing homework, they were also watching TV, texting, or listening to music. Victoria Rideout, the lead author of the study, warns parents about the dangers of media multitasking. This concern is distinct from worrying about how much kids are online or how much kids are media multitasking overall. “It’s multitasking while learning that has the biggest potential downside,”she says.

If a student is focused when doing their homework, they actually retain more of the information when it comes time to take a test on the same subject matter. It's like studying for the test little by little and absorbing the information in small chunks. The strategy of ‘chunking’ bits of information has been shown to be the most effective way to learn larger amounts of information and is a useful test prep strategy. If a student does her homework while multitasking, that will result in less information being retained and therefore  more time will be required for test preparation in order to achieve the same result. Compounding matters, if homework is done while multitasking in an introductory class, it will be more difficult to build on that “shaky foundation of knowledge” in the more advanced class the next semester.

Dr. David Meyer, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan observed that “under most conditions, the brain simply cannot do two complex tasks at the same time. Listening to a lecture while texting, or doing homework and being on Facebook—each of these tasks is very demanding, and each of them uses the same area of the brain, the prefrontal cortex." Most students incorrectly believe that they can perform two challenging tasks at the same time, according to Meyer. They may like to do it, they may even be addicted to it, but there’s no getting around the fact that it’s far better to focus on one task from start to finish.”

Quick Test for Students to Determine if Multitasking Impacts Performance

Here’s a fun, 3 minute test that you can do along with your kids to demonstrate if multitasking impacts performance (and the time it takes to complete homework).  Taking this simple test will allow students to see for themselves if multitasking could potentially be affecting their studying.

http://davecrenshaw.com/multitasking-example/

Top 3 Negative Outcomes of Studying While Being Distracted by Technology

According to an article by Annie Murphy Paul , research has shown that there are various negative outcomes that result from students multitasking while doing homework. Paul describes the top 3 negative outcomes. "First, the assignment takes longer to complete, because of the time spent on distracting activities and because, upon returning to the assignment, the student has to re-familiarize himself with the material.” Second, the mental fatigue caused by repeatedly dropping and picking up a mental thread leads to more mistakes. “Third, students’ subsequent memory of what they’re working on will be impaired if their attention is divided.” Paul explains, “The moment of encoding information is what matters most for retention, and dozens of laboratory studies have demonstrated that when our attention is divided during encoding, we remember that piece of information less well—or not at all."

Paul goes on to write, "Finally, researchers have found that media multitasking while learning is correlated with lower grades. In Rosen’s study (discussed above), students who used Facebook during the 15-minute observation period had lower grade-point averages than those who didn’t go on the site. In addition, two recent studies by Reynol Junco , a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkan Center for Internet & Society , found that texting and using Facebook—in class and while doing homework—were negatively correlated with college students’ GPAs."

In conclusion, the evidence is overwhelming. Studying or doing homework while sitting in front of the TV, using social media or texting, makes it more difficult to learn and retain the information, increases the time it takes to complete homework, and may ultimately result in lower test scores.

Is your child attached to his smart phone or other electronic gadgets? If so, and grades are suffering, it might be time to take action. Are you ready to help your child  break the multitasking habit, learn to focus attention on homework and get on the path to academic success?

How Parents Can Help Children Manage Distractions While Studying

Teach your child to take technology breaks to separate doing homework from using technology. Here's the strategy: After your child has worked on his homework without interruption for 15 minutes, he is then allowed a technology break for 2-3 minutes to text and post to social media. When the break time is up, you instruct him to turn off his electronic devices for another 15 minutes of doing homework or studying. Students can extend their working time to 20, 30 or 45 minutes and perhaps extend their technology break time to 5-7 minutes. If your child complains that the technology break time is too short, you can let him know that when he is finished with his homework, he can use technology for as long as he wants (or whatever amount of time you say is ok).

Would you like to cut your child's homework time in half?

If so, click below to download our free guide to "Cutting Homework Time in Half."  You might also want to contact us to see if Executive Function coaching can help your child with focusing attention on homework .

Photo credit: Gitte Laasby

Attribution: A much more detailed discussion of some of these studies can be found in Slate Magazine (May 3, 2013) by Annie Murphy Paul , a fellow at the New America Foundation and author of the book Brilliant: The Science of How We Get Smarter.

Michael Howard is the Director of Marketing for Beyond BookSmart. He joined the company in 2012 and works remotely from Los Angeles. He is responsible for researching and developing marketing strategies, marketing materials, updating and optimizing the company website, social media, and search engine optimization. Michael earned his BA in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his MS in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Lamar University .

About the Author

Michael howard.

Michael Howard is the Lead Marketing Strategist for Beyond BookSmart. He joined the company in 2012 and works remotely from Los Angeles. He is responsible for researching and developing marketing strategies, marketing materials, updating and optimizing the company website, social media, and search engine optimization. Michael is also involved with researching and recruiting potential candidates for employment. Michael earned his BA in Psychology from the University of Illinois, Champaign and his MS in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Lamar University.

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How technology is shaping learning in higher education

About the authors.

This article is a collaborative effort by Claudio Brasca, Charag Krishnan , Varun Marya , Katie Owen, Joshua Sirois, and Shyla Ziade, representing views from McKinsey’s Education Practice.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift to remote learning overnight for most higher-education students, starting in the spring of 2020. To complement video lectures and engage students in the virtual classroom, educators adopted technologies that enabled more interactivity and hybrid models of online and in-person activities. These tools changed learning, teaching, and assessment in ways that may persist after the pandemic. Investors have taken note. Edtech start-ups raised record amounts of venture capital in 2020 and 2021, and market valuations for bigger players soared.

A study conducted by McKinsey in 2021 found that to engage most effectively with students, higher-education institutions can focus on eight dimensions  of the learning experience. In this article, we describe the findings of a study of the learning technologies that can enable aspects of several of those eight dimensions (see sidebar “Eight dimensions of the online learning experience”).

Eight dimensions of the online learning experience

Leading online higher-education institutions focus on eight key dimensions of the learning experience across three overarching principles.

Seamless journey

Clear education road map: “My online program provides a road map to achieve my life goals and helps me structure my day to day to achieve steady progress.”

Seamless connections: “I have one-click access to classes and learning resources in the virtual learning platform through my laptop or my phone.”

Engaging teaching approach

Range of learning formats: “My program offers a menu of engaging courses with both self-guided and real-time classes, and lots of interaction with instructors and peers.”

Captivating experiences: “I learn from the best professors and experts. My classes are high quality, with up-to-date content.”

Adaptive learning: “I access a personalized platform that helps me practice exercises and exams and gives immediate feedback without having to wait for the course teacher.”

Real-world skills application: “My online program helps me get hands-on practice using exciting virtual tools to solve real-world problems.”

Caring network

Timely support: “I am not alone in my learning journey and have adequate 24/7 support for academic and nonacademic issues.”

Strong community: “I feel part of an academic community and I’m able to make friends online.”

In November 2021, McKinsey surveyed 600 faculty members and 800 students from public and private nonprofit colleges and universities in the United States, including minority-serving institutions, about the use and impact of eight different classroom learning technologies (Exhibit 1). (For more on the learning technologies analyzed in this research, see sidebar “Descriptions of the eight learning technologies.”) To supplement the survey, we interviewed industry experts and higher-education professionals who make decisions about classroom technology use. We discovered which learning tools and approaches have seen the highest uptake, how students and educators view them, the barriers to higher adoption, how institutions have successfully adopted innovative technologies, and the notable impacts on learning (for details about our methodology, see sidebar “About the research”).

Double-digit growth in adoption and positive perceptions

Descriptions of the eight learning technologies.

• Classroom interactions: These are software platforms that allow students to ask questions, make comments, respond to polls, and attend breakout discussions in real time, among other features. They are downloadable and accessible from phones, computers, and tablets, relevant to all subject areas, and useful for remote and in-person learning.
• Classroom exercises: These platforms gamify learning with fun, low-stakes competitions, pose problems to solve during online classes, allow students to challenge peers to quizzes, and promote engagement with badges and awards. They are relevant to all subject areas.
• Connectivity and community building: A broad range of informal, opt-in tools, these allow students to engage with one another and instructors and participate in the learning community. They also include apps that give students 24/7 asynchronous access to lectures, expanded course materials, and notes with enhanced search and retrieval functionality.
• Group work: These tools let students collaborate in and out of class via breakout/study rooms, group preparation for exams and quizzes, and streamlined file sharing.
• Augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR): Interactive simulations immerse learners in course content, such as advanced lab simulations for hard sciences, medical simulations for nursing, and virtual exhibit tours for the liberal arts. AR can be offered with proprietary software on most mobile or laptop devices. VR requires special headsets, proprietary software, and adequate classroom space for simultaneous use.
• AI adaptive course delivery: Cloud-based, AI-powered software adapts course content to a student’s knowledge level and abilities. These are fully customizable by instructors and available in many subject areas, including business, humanities, and sciences.
• Machine learning–powered teaching assistants: Also known as chatbot programs, machine learning–powered teaching assistants answer student questions and explain course content outside of class. These can auto-create, deliver, and grade assignments and exams, saving instructors’ time; they are downloadable from mobile app stores and can be accessed on personal devices.
• Student progress monitoring: These tools let instructors monitor academic progress, content mastery, and engagement. Custom alerts and reports identify at-risk learners and help instructors tailor the content or their teaching style for greater effectiveness. This capability is often included with subscriptions to adaptive learning platforms.

Survey respondents reported a 19 percent average increase in overall use of these learning technologies since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Technologies that enable connectivity and community building, such as social media–inspired discussion platforms and virtual study groups, saw the biggest uptick in use—49 percent—followed by group work tools, which grew by 29 percent (Exhibit 2). These technologies likely fill the void left by the lack of in-person experiences more effectively than individual-focused learning tools such as augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR). Classroom interaction technologies such as real-time chatting, polling, and breakout room discussions were the most widely used tools before the pandemic and remain so; 67 percent of survey respondents said they currently use these tools in the classroom.

About the research

In November 2021, McKinsey surveyed 634 faculty members and 818 students from public, private, and minority-serving colleges and universities over a ten-day period. The survey included only students and faculty who had some remote- or online-learning experience with any of the eight featured technologies. Respondents were 63 percent female, 35 percent male, and 2 percent other gender identities; 69 percent White, 18 percent Black or African American, 8 percent Asian, and 4 percent other ethnicities; and represented every US region. The survey asked respondents about their:

• experiences with technology in the classroom pre-COVID-19;
• experiences with technology in the classroom since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic; and
• desire for future learning experiences in relation to technology.

The shift to more interactive and diverse learning models will likely continue. One industry expert told us, “The pandemic pushed the need for a new learning experience online. It recentered institutions to think about how they’ll teach moving forward and has brought synchronous and hybrid learning into focus.” Consequently, many US colleges and universities are actively investing to scale up their online and hybrid program offerings .

Differences in adoption by type of institution observed in the research

• Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and tribal colleges and universities made the most use of classroom interactions and group work tools (55 percent) and the least use of tools for monitoring student progress (15 percent).
• Private institutions used classroom interaction technologies (84 percent) more than public institutions (63 percent).
• Public institutions, often associated with larger student populations and course sizes, employed group work and connectivity and community-building tools more often than private institutions.
• The use of AI teaching-assistant technologies increased significantly more at public institutions (30 percent) than at private institutions (9 percent), though overall usage remained comparatively higher at private institutions.
• The use of tools for monitoring student progress increased by 14 percent at private institutions, versus no growth at public institutions.

Some technologies lag behind in adoption. Tools enabling student progress monitoring, AR/VR, machine learning–powered teaching assistants (TAs), AI adaptive course delivery, and classroom exercises are currently used by less than half of survey respondents. Anecdotal evidence suggests that technologies such as AR/VR require a substantial investment in equipment and may be difficult to use at scale in classes with high enrollment. Our survey also revealed utilization disparities based on size. Small public institutions use machine learning–powered TAs, AR/VR, and technologies for monitoring student progress at double or more the rates of medium and large public institutions, perhaps because smaller, specialized schools can make more targeted and cost-effective investments. We also found that medium and large public institutions made greater use of connectivity and community-building tools than small public institutions (57 to 59 percent compared with 45 percent, respectively). Although the uptake of AI-powered tools was slower, higher-education experts we interviewed predict their use will increase; they allow faculty to tailor courses to each student’s progress, reduce their workload, and improve student engagement at scale (see sidebar “Differences in adoption by type of institution observed in the research”).

While many colleges and universities are interested in using more technologies to support student learning, the top three barriers indicated are lack of awareness, inadequate deployment capabilities, and cost (Exhibit 3).

Students want entertaining and efficient tools

More than 60 percent of students said that all the classroom learning technologies they’ve used since COVID-19 began had improved their learning and grades (Exhibit 4). However, two technologies earned higher marks than the rest for boosting academic performance: 80 percent of students cited classroom exercises, and 71 percent cited machine learning–powered teaching assistants.

Although AR/VR is not yet widely used, 37 percent of students said they are “most excited” about its potential in the classroom. While 88 percent of students believe AR/VR will make learning more entertaining, just 5 percent said they think it will improve their ability to learn or master content (Exhibit 5). Industry experts confirmed that while there is significant enthusiasm for AR/VR, its ability to improve learning outcomes is uncertain. Some data look promising. For example, in a recent pilot study, 1 “Immersive biology in the Alien Zoo: A Dreamscape Learn software product,” Dreamscape Learn, accessed October 2021. students who used a VR tool to complete coursework for an introductory biology class improved their subject mastery by an average of two letter grades.

Faculty embrace new tools but would benefit from more technical support and training

Faculty gave learning tools even higher marks than students did, for ease of use, engagement, access to course resources, and instructor connectivity. They also expressed greater excitement than students did for the future use of technologies. For example, while more than 30 percent of students expressed excitement for AR/VR and classroom interactions, more than 60 percent of faculty were excited about those, as well as machine learning–powered teaching assistants and AI adaptive technology.

Eighty-one percent or more of faculty said they feel the eight learning technology tools are a good investment of time and effort relative to the value they provide (Exhibit 6). Expert interviews suggest that employing learning technologies can be a strain on faculty members, but those we surveyed said this strain is worthwhile.

While faculty surveyed were enthusiastic about new technologies, experts we interviewed stressed some underlying challenges. For example, digital-literacy gaps have been more pronounced since the pandemic because it forced the near-universal adoption of some technology solutions, deepening a divide that was unnoticed when adoption was sporadic. More tech-savvy instructors are comfortable with interaction-engagement-focused solutions, while staff who are less familiar with these tools prefer content display and delivery-focused technologies.

According to experts we interviewed, learning new tools and features can bring on general fatigue. An associate vice president of e-learning at one university told us that faculty there found designing and executing a pilot study of VR for a computer science class difficult. “It’s a completely new way of instruction. . . . I imagine that the faculty using it now will not use it again in the spring.” Technical support and training help. A chief academic officer of e-learning who oversaw the introduction of virtual simulations for nursing and radiography students said that faculty holdouts were permitted to opt out but not to delay the program. “We structured it in a ‘we’re doing this together’ way. People who didn’t want to do it left, but we got a lot of support from vendors and training, which made it easy to implement simulations.”

Reimagining higher education in the United States

Takeaways from our research.

Despite the growing pains of digitizing the classroom learning experience, faculty and students believe there is a lot more they can gain. Faculty members are optimistic about the benefits, and students expect learning to stay entertaining and efficient. While adoption levels saw double-digit growth during the pandemic, many classrooms have yet to experience all the technologies. For institutions considering the investment, or those that have already started, there are several takeaways to keep in mind.

• It’s important for administration leaders, IT, and faculty to agree on what they want to accomplish by using a particular learning technology. Case studies and expert interviews suggest institutions that seek alignment from all their stakeholders before implementing new technologies are more successful. Is the primary objective student engagement and motivation? Better academic performance? Faculty satisfaction and retention? Once objectives are set, IT staff and faculty can collaborate more effectively in choosing the best technology and initiating programs.
• Factor in student access to technology before deployment. As education technology use grows, the digital divide for students puts access to education at risk. While all the institution types we surveyed use learning technologies in the classroom, they do so to varying degrees. For example, 55 percent of respondents from historically Black colleges and universities and tribal colleges and universities use classroom interaction tools. This is lower than public institutions’ overall utilization rate of 64 percent and private institutions’ utilization rate of 84 percent. Similarly, 15 percent of respondents from historically Black colleges and universities and tribal colleges and universities use tools for monitoring student progress, while the overall utilization rate for both public and private institutions is 25 percent.
• High-quality support eases adoption for students and faculty. Institutions that have successfully deployed new learning technologies provided technical support and training for students and guidance for faculty on how to adapt their course content and delivery. For example, institutions could include self-service resources, standardize tools for adoption, or provide stipend opportunities for faculty who attend technical training courses. One chief academic officer told us, “The adoption of platforms at the individual faculty level can be very difficult. Ease of use is still very dependent upon your IT support representative and how they will go to bat to support you.”
• Agree on impact metrics and start measuring in advance of deployment. Higher-education institutions often don’t have the means to measure the impact of their investment in learning technologies, yet it’s essential for maximizing returns. Attributing student outcomes to a specific technology can be complex due to the number of variables involved in academic performance. However, prior to investing in learning technologies, the institution and its faculty members can align on a core set of metrics to quantify and measure their impact. One approach is to measure a broad set of success indicators, such as tool usage, user satisfaction, letter grades, and DFW rates (the percentage of students who receive a D, F, or Withdraw) each term. The success indicators can then be correlated by modality—online versus hybrid versus in-class—to determine the impact of specific tools. Some universities have offered faculty grants of up to $20,000 for running pilot programs that assess whether tools are achieving high-priority objectives. “If implemented properly, at the right place, and with the right buy-in, education technology solutions are absolutely valuable and have a clear ROI,” a senior vice president of academic affairs and chief technology officer told us.

In an earlier article , we looked at the broader changes in higher education that have been prompted by the pandemic. But perhaps none has advanced as quickly as the adoption of digital learning tools. Faculty and students see substantial benefits, and adoption rates are a long way from saturation, so we can expect uptake to continue. Institutions that want to know how they stand in learning tech adoption can measure their rates and benchmark them against the averages in this article and use those comparisons to help them decide where they want to catch up or get ahead.

Claudio Brasca is a partner in McKinsey’s Bay Area office, where Varun Marya is a senior partner; Charag Krishnan is a partner in the New Jersey office; Katie Owen is an associate partner in the St. Louis office, where Joshua Sirois is a consultant; and Shyla Ziade is a consultant in the Denver office.

The authors wish to thank Paul Kim, chief technology officer and associate dean at Stanford School of Education, and Ryan Golden for their contributions to this article.

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Online homework management system for schools

There’s no denying that technology   has permanently altered the global landscape across industries, and at Firefly Learning we believe that education should be front and centre of digital progress.

Learning management systems   like Firefly Learning enable students, teachers, parents and schools to easily access and manage learning anywhere and anytime – with huge benefits for each.

Technology in the classroom has made significant strides in recent years and has had a proven positive effect on student learning outcomes. But the benefits extend beyond the classroom too by reshaping and disrupting outdated ideas about how homework is set, completed, managed and reported on.

We’ll explore these benefits in detail here, so read on to find out how classroom technology and online homework give teachers more time to teach and help students maximise their potential.

Benefits of online homework

At the outset, online homework frames activities in a context familiar to students, who are far likelier to engage with the digital world than with pens and paper.

But there’s more to it than that.

The Firefly for Students app revolutionises the way students can approach their work. When planning and researching their online homework, students have access to all the resources they could need – and teachers can control what these are.

Moreover, these resources aren’t limited to texts. Videos, images and other rich media are available to students 24/7, encouraging them to manage their use of resources.

Students doing their homework on a learning management system can further supplement their work with resources of their own. Firefly Learning’s ease of use means that embedding rich media is as simple as drag-and-drop, helping them to demonstrate the breadth of their knowledge.

Forgetting homework is also a thing of the past. Submitting online homework is a simple matter of clicking a button and can be done from wherever they are.  

How is homework online good for teachers?

From the broadest perspective, lesson- and homework-planning can be visualised, researched and managed all in one place. So when it comes time to set a piece of homework, the preparation can be done well in advance. Setting homework online using a learning management system widens the scope of activities from simple paper assignments. A teacher might want to set an interactive quiz or create a voting system to engage students more immediately. Resources for a student can be anything a teacher chooses and added to the platform with ease.

Online homework assignments can be tailored to individual students as well as designated groups. And if a student is struggling, they can interact with their teacher from home via the app. This means that teachers can give important feedback in real-time, even outside of the classroom.

Giving feedback and marks can be done in whichever way is most beneficial for the student and the teacher. Alongside annotating work and submitting marks easily, teachers can submit audio or video feedback – all of which saves time and helps supplement teachers’ one-on-one time with students in the classroom.

A distinct advantage of this type of working over traditional methods is the ability to track the progress of individual students and whole groups – even school-wide. There’s no need to repeatedly input data as this is automatically done by Firefly, and teachers can quickly identify which students might need special assistance – as well as those whose work has taken an unexpected dip. Further, it gives a crystal-clear way of assessing approaches and the effect that implemented processes are having.

In short, the advantages of a virtual learning environment  (VLE) for teachers and schools are many, and all contribute to giving teachers more time to teach.

Is online homework good for parents?

Firefly Learning enables teachers to give parents as much access to their child’s learning as they choose. In a step that is particularly advantageous to parents whose one-on-one time with their child is limited, they can use the Firefly for Parents app to check a their child’s progress from wherever they are.

Teachers can allow resources and online homework tasks to be shared with parents, giving them opportunities to engage with their child’s learning at home.

Parents can have unhindered communication with schools and teachers, helping them raise concerns and not have to wait until parents’ evening.

And on a more pragmatic level, parents can be kept up-to-date with school activities and notifications.

How hard is it to ensure your child completes their homework?

Source: Homework habits across Australia study

Giving teachers more time to teach

Online homework doesn’t only streamline students’ ability to complete homework assignments.

It enables them to use the full scope of their creativity and equips them with wider skillsets, such as researching, substantiating and resource gathering.

It reflects students’ effort and helps teachers quickly assess where individual students excel and where they might need more assistance.

It gives teachers the ability to feedback meaningfully outside of the classroom environment, augmenting the impact of their lessons.

And much more. But, ultimately, online homework gives teachers more time to teach. Given the maxim that teachers are extremely busy people, Firefly Learning is helping them to use their time more effectively, which in turn leads to improved learning in their students.

Ready to try Firefly?

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Using Technology for Homework – Can It Work with My Child?

I’m a big fan of Tali and GetScreen!  She’s our Guest Blogger this month and has a lot to share.

By Tali Orad

Technology as a Homework Helper

With technology at the everyone’s disposal, especially kids, we see more and more students using it for their homework. Student surveyed shows almost third are using a tablet for it, while 65% are using a laptop for homework.

To make it even more challenging, 39% of 14 year old reported using a smartphone to complete their homework, 42% of 6th graders used them, while 57% of 8th graders did the same (based on a study from Teen Research Unlimited, done for the Verizon Foundation found).

There are great benefits for technology with doing homework

Many schools have an interface or learning management system, like Edmodo , in place that allows parents to view homework assignments and their own child’s progress. For parent of an organizational challenged child, it’s the dream come true.

For the child, the ability to finish and submit homework electronically, lower the chances of forgetting to submit or lose homework sheets.

Having the option to rely on technology make scheduling easier. With tools like google calendar, and other calendar apps, a 7th grader can have all assignment in the calendar. And Google can remind him or her to study for a test. It can also show the list of project scheduled for the following week, making it easier to plan ahead.

Plus, teachers are more accessible as many are on social media for the students to contact them and ask questions.

When getting down to do homework

In a study conducted by Dr. Larry Rosen , a psychology professor at California State University – Dominguez Hills, surveyed high school students and asked them how often they switch from studying to doing something related to technology such as checking email, social media, texting, or even watching TV. Across all grade levels, 80% of students reported that they switch between studying and technology somewhat often to very often. Rosen calls this “Continuous Partial Attention”, meaning that most of the time, students are not focused on studying but rather are moving their attention back and forth between studying and various forms of technology.

Rosen explains, “Young people’s technology use is really about quelling anxiety…they don’t want to miss out or to be the last person to hear some news (or like or comment about a post online).” One of the major problems with texting and posting on social media sites while in class and/or studying, is that “they draw on the same mental resources—using language, parsing meaning—demanded by schoolwork.” Ultimately, he concludes, if we want students to learn and perform at their best, smart phones and other online distractions must be managed.

This, as you might expect, affected their grades, and quality of work. Students who were less distracted had higher GPAs than students who switched back and forth often and those who regularly check Facebook or text messages. Students who had strategies for studying also had higher GPAs per Rosen’s findings.

If we want our children to succeed at school and be able to utilize technology, we need to set boundaries . Discuss with your child the appropriate time and place to use technology.

Teach him or her to take technology breaks to separate doing homework from using technology.

Use parental control tools to block their usage off their devices when it’s time for homework.

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The Gila Herald

Your trusted source for news of the Gila Valley and more.

How technologies help students to do homework faster

Photo Courtesy pexels.com

By Jeremy Bumgardner

Technology has taken over many aspects of our lives. It has changed job hunting, even dating, parenting skills, and more. Students are the group that has been greatly influenced by technology. As a student, the benefits you enjoy are many. 

Technology has improved learning so much that educational institutions all over the world have integrated technology into their systems. This innovation has changed how schools interact with everyone involved. Here are some of the truly amazing ways that technology has helped students do homework faster.

More ways to learn

In traditional classrooms, teachers present materials and students listen. All of the students in the class move through the content of the lessons at the same pace. Students of the past had very little freedom, especially in classes. Today’s classrooms are very different. For one, the use of online tools gives students more flexible and tailored learning experiences. For instance, you can use a YouTube video as a tutorial to understand a concept better. 

Some students may choose to complete online games or activities which will provide them with instant feedback. This way, they can find out if they’re on the right track. There are also those students who grasp lessons quickly, then search for more difficult activities or problems to supplement what they learned. Conversely, students who require more practice can use activities that provide them with more repetition or practice. Technology offers a variety that traditional classrooms cannot.

Enhanced communication

Overworked teachers usually find it hard to communicate with their students. Some factors that can contribute to their stress are the completion of coursework before exams and having too many students in a class. Technology today can transform classrooms into information networks where teachers can post assignments progressively and logically. Students can then ask questions to each other easily. 

Moreover, online communications work better with students who have issues speaking in front of a class. This method allows improved peer-to-peer discussions while creating a structured record of communications for students that teachers can access at any time.

Easy homework help for students

We can see technology in education in different forms. When I was in college, my fellow students and I used technology to our advantage. We used apps, search engines, websites, and more to make our lives easier. Often, I asked the essay writers Canada at Ca.EduBirdie to write my thesis. This is an essay writing service and a thesis writing service that I turn to often to do my homework for me. It’s quick, reliable, and trusted by students all over the world.

Quick and easy research

It’s expected for you to submit to your learning institutions or teachers the works that you have researched and accomplished on your own. In many colleges, students receive very little guidance and sometimes none whatsoever. Fortunately, you can take advantage of online encyclopedias, search engines, educational platforms, and the like to make life a lot easier for you. With these, you can easily access recorded videos and other relevant information. 

Technology will provide you with content for your assignments. To top it all off, most of these resources are completely free. You can access these resources anytime and anywhere. Unlike traditional libraries, the internet never closes – you can access it 24/7.

Prepares students for the real world

Since there are now many  technological trends in education , it is very important for students to learn about these trends in all aspects of education. As a student, doing this will prepare you for the real world after you graduate. Technology has advanced exponentially and students like you are at the forefront of its benefits. You don’t have to travel to see the wonders of the world. Geology professors can take their classes on virtual tours. 

Teachers of technical courses can offer simulations for better learning. With technology, there are no more physical barriers. This offers a way to connect various curriculums with experiences in the real world. If you want to survive in a modern-day century work environment, you need more than a basic knowledge of technological tools like web pages, electronic calendars, electronic whiteboards, teleconferencing, and more. 

Learning institutions now integrate these technologies into regular curriculums to ensure that their students will be well-prepared when they enter modern workplaces.

Most people speak about the negative effects of too much screen time and how social media can affect our lives adversely. We rarely hear about the good things technology has done for us. But when used properly, technology can enhance education for students of all ages and levels.

Author’s Bio 

Jeremy Bumgardner has been writing since he completed his graduation. He has made a place for himself in the academic writing world owing to his dedication to his work and a zeal to serve his student client base in the best possible manner. He enjoys his days off reading business blogs, watching comedy shows and nature documentaries.

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• The Internet and the Pandemic

90% of Americans say the internet has been essential or important to them, many made video calls and 40% used technology in new ways. But while tech was a lifeline for some, others faced struggles

Table of contents.

• 1. How the internet and technology shaped Americans’ personal experiences amid COVID-19
• 2. Parents, their children and school during the pandemic
• 3. Navigating technological challenges
• 4. The role of technology in COVID-19 vaccine registration
• Acknowledgments
• Methodology

Pew Research Center has a long history of studying technology adoption trends and the impact of digital technology on society. This report focuses on American adults’ experiences with and attitudes about their internet and technology use during the COVID-19 outbreak. For this analysis, we surveyed 4,623 U.S. adults from April 12-18, 2021. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

Chapter 1 of this report includes responses to an open-ended question and the overall report includes a number of quotations to help illustrate themes and add nuance to the survey findings. Quotations may have been lightly edited for grammar, spelling and clarity. The first three themes mentioned in each open-ended response, according to a researcher-developed codebook, were coded into categories for analysis. 

Here are the questions used for this report , along with responses, and its methodology .

The  coronavirus  has transformed many aspects of Americans’ lives. It  shut down  schools, businesses and workplaces and forced millions to  stay at home  for extended lengths of time. Public health authorities recommended  limits on social contact  to try to contain the spread of the virus, and these profoundly altered the way many worked, learned, connected with loved ones, carried out basic daily tasks, celebrated and mourned. For some, technology played a role in this transformation.  

Results from a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted April 12-18, 2021, reveal the extent to which people’s use of the internet has changed, their views about how helpful technology has been for them and the struggles some have faced. 

The vast majority of adults (90%) say the internet has been at least important to them personally during the pandemic, the survey finds. The share who say it has been  essential  – 58% – is up slightly from 53% in April 2020. There have also been upticks in the shares who say the internet has been essential in the past year among those with a bachelor’s degree or more formal education, adults under 30, and those 65 and older. 

A large majority of Americans (81%) also say they talked with others via video calls at some point since the pandemic’s onset. And for 40% of Americans, digital tools have taken on new relevance: They report they used technology or the internet in ways that were new or different to them. Some also sought upgrades to their service as the pandemic unfolded: 29% of broadband users did something to improve the speed, reliability or quality of their high-speed internet connection at home since the beginning of the outbreak.

Still, tech use has not been an unmitigated boon for everyone. “ Zoom fatigue ” was widely speculated to be a problem in the pandemic, and some Americans report related experiences in the new survey: 40% of those who have ever talked with others via video calls since the beginning of the pandemic say they have felt worn out or fatigued often or sometimes by the time they spend on them. Moreover,  changes in screen time  occurred for  Americans generally  and for  parents of young children . The survey finds that a third of all adults say they tried to cut back on time spent on their smartphone or the internet at some point during the pandemic. In addition, 72% of parents of children in grades K-12 say their kids are spending more time on screens compared with before the outbreak. 1

For many, digital interactions could only do so much as a stand-in for in-person communication. About two-thirds of Americans (68%) say the interactions they would have had in person, but instead had online or over the phone, have generally been useful – but not a replacement for in-person contact. Another 15% say these tools haven’t been of much use in their interactions. Still, 17% report that these digital interactions have been just as good as in-person contact.

Some types of technology have been more helpful than others for Americans. For example, 44% say text messages or group messaging apps have helped them a lot to stay connected with family and friends, 38% say the same about voice calls and 30% say this about video calls. Smaller shares say social media sites (20%) and email (19%) have helped them in this way.

The survey offers a snapshot of Americans’ lives just over one year into the pandemic as they reflected back on what had happened. It is important to note the findings were gathered in April 2021, just before  all U.S. adults became eligible for coronavirus vaccine s. At the time, some states were  beginning to loosen restrictions  on businesses and social encounters. This survey also was fielded before the delta variant  became prominent  in the United States,  raising concerns  about new and  evolving variants . 

Here are some of the key takeaways from the survey.

Americans’ tech experiences in the pandemic are linked to digital divides, tech readiness 

Some Americans’ experiences with technology haven’t been smooth or easy during the pandemic. The digital divides related to  internet use  and  affordability  were highlighted by the pandemic and also emerged in new ways as life moved online.

For all Americans relying on screens during the pandemic,  connection quality  has been important for school assignments, meetings and virtual social encounters alike. The new survey highlights difficulties for some: Roughly half of those who have a high-speed internet connection at home (48%) say they have problems with the speed, reliability or quality of their home connection often or sometimes. 2

Beyond that, affordability  remained a persistent concern  for a portion of digital tech users as the pandemic continued – about a quarter of home broadband users (26%) and smartphone owners (24%) said in the April 2021 survey that they worried a lot or some about paying their internet and cellphone bills over the next few months. 

From parents of children facing the “ homework gap ” to Americans struggling to  afford home internet , those with lower incomes have been particularly likely to struggle. At the same time, some of those with higher incomes have been affected as well.

Affordability and connection problems have hit broadband users with lower incomes especially hard. Nearly half of broadband users with lower incomes, and about a quarter of those with midrange incomes, say that as of April they were at least somewhat worried about paying their internet bill over the next few months. 3 And home broadband users with lower incomes are roughly 20 points more likely to say they often or sometimes experience problems with their connection than those with relatively high incomes. Still, 55% of those with lower incomes say the internet has been essential to them personally in the pandemic.

At the same time, Americans’ levels of formal education are associated with their experiences turning to tech during the pandemic. 

Those with a bachelor’s or advanced degree are about twice as likely as those with a high school diploma or less formal education to have used tech in new or different ways during the pandemic. There is also roughly a 20 percentage point gap between these two groups in the shares who have made video calls about once a day or more often and who say these calls have helped at least a little to stay connected with family and friends. And 71% of those with a bachelor’s degree or more education say the internet has been essential, compared with 45% of those with a high school diploma or less.

More broadly, not all Americans believe they have key tech skills. In this survey, about a quarter of adults (26%) say they usually need someone else’s help to set up or show them how to use a new computer, smartphone or other electronic device. And one-in-ten report they have little to no confidence in their ability to use these types of devices to do the things they need to do online. This report refers to those who say they experience either or both of these issues as having “lower tech readiness.” Some 30% of adults fall in this category. (A full description of how this group was identified can be found in  Chapter 3. )

These struggles are particularly acute for older adults, some of whom have had to  learn new tech skills  over the course of the pandemic. Roughly two-thirds of adults 75 and older fall into the group having lower tech readiness – that is, they either have little or no confidence in their ability to use their devices, or generally need help setting up and learning how to use new devices. Some 54% of Americans ages 65 to 74 are also in this group. 

Americans with lower tech readiness have had different experiences with technology during the pandemic. While 82% of the Americans with lower tech readiness say the internet has been at least important to them personally during the pandemic, they are less likely than those with higher tech readiness to say the internet has been essential (39% vs. 66%). Some 21% of those with lower tech readiness say digital interactions haven’t been of much use in standing in for in-person contact, compared with 12% of those with higher tech readiness. 

46% of parents with lower incomes whose children faced school closures say their children had at least one problem related to the ‘homework gap’

As school moved online for many families, parents and their children experienced profound changes. Fully 93% of parents with K-12 children at home say these children had some online instruction during the pandemic. Among these parents, 62% report that online learning has gone very or somewhat well, and 70% say it has been very or somewhat easy for them to help their children use technology for online instruction.

Still, 30% of the parents whose children have had online instruction during the pandemic say it has been very or somewhat difficult for them to help their children use technology or the internet for this. 

The survey also shows that children from households with lower incomes who faced school closures in the pandemic have been especially likely to encounter tech-related obstacles in completing their schoolwork – a phenomenon contributing to the “ homework gap .”

Overall, about a third (34%) of all parents whose children’s schools closed at some point say their children have encountered at least one of the tech-related issues we asked about amid COVID-19: having to do schoolwork on a cellphone, being unable to complete schoolwork because of lack of computer access at home, or having to use public Wi-Fi to finish schoolwork because there was no reliable connection at home. 

This share is higher among parents with lower incomes whose children’s schools closed. Nearly half (46%) say their children have faced at least one of these issues. Some with higher incomes were affected as well – about three-in-ten (31%) of these parents with midrange incomes say their children faced one or more of these issues, as do about one-in-five of these parents with higher household incomes.

Prior Center work has documented this “ homework gap ” in other contexts – both  before the coronavirus outbreak  and  near the beginning of the pandemic . In April 2020, for example, parents with lower incomes were particularly likely to think their children would face these struggles amid the outbreak.

Besides issues related to remote schooling, other changes were afoot in families as the pandemic forced many families to shelter in place. For instance, parents’ estimates of their children’s screen time – and family rules around this – changed in some homes. About seven-in-ten parents with children in kindergarten through 12th grade (72%) say their children were spending more time on screens as of the April survey compared with before the outbreak. Some 39% of parents with school-age children say they have become less strict about screen time rules during the outbreak. About one-in-five (18%) say they have become more strict, while 43% have kept screen time rules about the same. 

More adults now favor the idea that schools should provide digital technology to all students during the pandemic than did in April 2020

Americans’ tech struggles related to digital divides gained attention from policymakers and news organizations as the pandemic progressed.

On some policy issues, public attitudes changed over the course of the outbreak – for example, views on what K-12 schools should provide to students shifted. Some 49% now say K-12 schools have a responsibility to provide all students with laptop or tablet computers in order to help them complete their schoolwork during the pandemic, up 12 percentage points from a year ago.

The shares of those who say so have increased for both major political parties over the past year: This view shifted 15 points for Republicans and those who lean toward the GOP, and there was a 9-point increase for Democrats and Democratic leaners.

However, when it comes to views of policy solutions for internet access more generally, not much has changed. Some 37% of Americans say that the government has a responsibility to ensure all Americans have high-speed internet access during the outbreak, and the overall share is unchanged from April 2020 – the first time Americans were asked this specific question about the government’s pandemic responsibility to provide internet access. 4

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the government has this responsibility, and within the Republican Party, those with lower incomes are more likely to say this than their counterparts earning more money. 

Video calls and conferencing have been part of everyday life

Americans’ own words provide insight into exactly how their lives changed amid COVID-19. When asked to describe the new or different ways they had used technology, some Americans mention video calls and conferencing facilitating a variety of virtual interactions – including attending events like weddings, family holidays and funerals or transforming where and how they worked. 5 From family calls, shopping for groceries and placing takeout orders online to having telehealth visits with medical professionals or participating in online learning activities, some aspects of life have been virtually transformed: 

“I’ve gone from not even knowing remote programs like Zoom even existed, to using them nearly every day.” – Man, 54

“[I’ve been] h andling … deaths of family and friends remotely, attending and sharing classical music concerts and recitals with other professionals, viewing [my] own church services and Bible classes, shopping. … Basically, [the internet has been] a lifeline.”  – Woman, 69

“I … use Zoom for church youth activities. [I] use Zoom for meetings. I order groceries and takeout food online. We arranged for a ‘digital reception’ for my daughter’s wedding as well as live streaming the event.” – Woman, 44

When asked about video calls specifically, half of Americans report they have talked with others in this way at least once a week since the beginning of the outbreak; one-in-five have used these platforms daily. But how often people have experienced this type of digital connectedness varies by age. For example, about a quarter of adults ages 18 to 49 (27%) say they have connected with others on video calls about once a day or more often, compared with 16% of those 50 to 64 and just 7% of those 65 and older. 

Even as video technology became a part of life for users, many  accounts of burnout  surfaced and some speculated that “Zoom fatigue” was setting in as Americans grew weary of this type of screen time. The survey finds that some 40% of those who participated in video calls since the beginning of the pandemic – a third of all Americans – say they feel worn out or fatigued often or sometimes from the time they spend on video calls. About three-quarters of those who have been on these calls several times a day in the pandemic say this.

Fatigue is not limited to frequent users, however: For example, about a third (34%) of those who have made video calls about once a week say they feel worn out at least sometimes.

These are among the main findings from the survey. Other key results include:

Some Americans’ personal lives and social relationships have changed during the pandemic:  Some 36% of Americans say their own personal lives changed in a major way as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Another 47% say their personal lives changed, but only a little bit.   About half (52%) of those who say major change has occurred in their personal lives due to the pandemic also say they have used tech in new ways, compared with about four-in-ten (38%) of those whose personal lives changed a little bit and roughly one-in-five (19%) of those who say their personal lives stayed about the same.

Even as tech helped some to stay connected, a quarter of Americans say they feel less close to close family members now compared with before the pandemic, and about four-in-ten (38%) say the same about friends they know well. Roughly half (53%) say this about casual acquaintances.

The majority of those who tried to sign up for vaccine appointments in the first part of the year went online to do so:  Despite early problems with  vaccine rollout  and  online registration systems , in the April survey tech problems did  not  appear to be major struggles for most adults who had tried to sign up online for COVID-19 vaccines. The survey explored Americans’ experiences getting these vaccine appointments and reveals that in April 57% of adults had tried to sign themselves up and 25% had tried to sign someone else up. Fully 78% of those who tried to sign themselves up and 87% of those who tried to sign others up were online registrants. 

When it comes to difficulties with the online vaccine signup process, 29% of those who had tried to sign up online – 13% of all Americans – say it was very or somewhat difficult to sign themselves up for vaccines at that time. Among five reasons for this that the survey asked about, the most common  major  reason was lack of available appointments, rather than tech-related problems. Adults 65 and older who tried to sign themselves up for the vaccine online were the most likely age group to experience at least some difficulty when they tried to get a vaccine appointment.

Tech struggles and usefulness alike vary by race and ethnicity.  Americans’ experiences also have varied across racial and ethnic groups. For example, Black Americans are more likely than White or Hispanic adults to meet the criteria for having “lower tech readiness.” 6 Among broadband users, Black and Hispanic adults were also more likely than White adults to be worried about paying their bills for their high-speed internet access at home as of April, though the share of Hispanic Americans who say this declined sharply since April 2020. And a majority of Black and Hispanic broadband users say they at least sometimes have experienced problems with their internet connection. 

Still, Black adults and Hispanic adults are more likely than White adults to say various technologies – text messages, voice calls, video calls, social media sites and email – have helped them a lot to stay connected with family and friends amid the pandemic.

Tech has helped some adults under 30 to connect with friends, but tech fatigue also set in for some.  Only about one-in-five adults ages 18 to 29 say they feel closer to friends they know well compared with before the pandemic. This share is twice as high as that among adults 50 and older. Adults under 30 are also more likely than any other age group to say social media sites have helped a lot in staying connected with family and friends (30% say so), and about four-in-ten of those ages 18 to 29 say this about video calls. 

Screen time affected some negatively, however. About six-in-ten adults under 30 (57%) who have ever made video calls in the pandemic say they at least sometimes feel worn out or fatigued from spending time on video calls, and about half (49%) of young adults say they have tried to cut back on time spent on the internet or their smartphone.

• Throughout this report, “parents” refers to those who said they were the parent or guardian of any children who were enrolled in elementary, middle or high school and who lived in their household at the time of the survey. ↩
• People with a high-speed internet connection at home also are referred to as “home broadband users” or “broadband users” throughout this report. ↩
• Family incomes are based on 2019 earnings and adjusted for differences in purchasing power by geographic region and for household sizes. Middle income is defined here as two-thirds to double the median annual family income for all panelists on the American Trends Panel. Lower income falls below that range; upper income falls above it. ↩
• A separate  Center study  also fielded in April 2021 asked Americans what the government is responsible for on a number of topics, but did not mention the coronavirus outbreak. Some 43% of Americans said in that survey that the federal government has a responsibility to provide high-speed internet for all Americans. This was a significant increase from 2019, the last time the Center had asked that more general question, when 28% said the same. ↩
• Quotations in this report may have been lightly edited for grammar, spelling and clarity. ↩
• There were not enough Asian American respondents in the sample to be broken out into a separate analysis. As always, their responses are incorporated into the general population figures throughout this report. ↩

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