Technology surrounds us, it is an unescapable reality that we live in. In school, technology has been increasingly integrated into the learning experience. Who can forget all the time spent on Zoom during COVID, or how important resources such as Google Classroom and Moodle are to teachers and students. An Elkhorn North student can expect to have at least one online assignment daily. The question then becomes, if students use their Chromebooks for some of their homework assignments, then why not make it for all of them?
There are some serious benefits to this idea; students doing homework on Google Forms will be able to receive nearly instantaneous feedback on if they were correct, and it would be much more convenient for teachers, as they wouldn’t have to constantly print worksheets for students to complete.
“It is easier for teachers and it also shows students the percentage that they got right,” math teacher Brian Legband said.
For classes such as Pre-Calculus and AP Stats, teachers and students use an online resource , MyMathLab, to complete most of their assignments. This can be difficult for some students as they are so used to doing their homework in the typical paper and pencil manner. These Calculus and Statistics also consist largely of seniors, so it is a big ask for students to make this change so late into their high school education.
“I like on paper assignments more because it is what I am more used to and easier to do,” senior Cosette Kaminski said.
Another concern about online assignments is that the formatting is difficult online unlike the paper-pencil counterpart. Graphing can be done very simply with paper and pencil, but for online work it depends on how the site has things set up. In my personal experience, my first time trying to graph, using MyMathLabs, confused me and I had to ask my teacher to show me how to properly do it.
Another complaint about online assignments is that when students have their devices out in class, teachers are required to monitor students’ behavior using DYKNOW.
“When students use paper-pencil, they still have their Chromebooks open to use the ‘answer key’ so the amount of monitoring really hasn’t changed much,” Legband said.
A recurring problem for students over the years is that when doing homework, the only real method to check if they are right or wrong is to use the answer key. With the answers given to students, cheating is easy. MyMathLabs does not have this issue since it has many examples for students, including step-by-step processes for all the questions.
“I prefer the online assignments because it gives students instant feedback and there are resources to help you solve the problems,” Legband said.
As a senior, I have had plenty of time to experience both paper-pencil and online assignments and I’ve found things in each that I like. Something that I personally like about paper-pencil homework is being able to see all of my work written out and as well as being able to cross out multiple choice answers I think are wrong. One problem I have is misplacing assignments and having to rework them, something that would never happen if the assignment was online.
In an ideal world, I would choose to never have homework but alas, that is not possible. Personally, I choose paper pencil as my preferred form of homework because it is what I have been most used to, and it is too late to change that now.
