As technology advances, the list of excuses for missing or unfinished homework grows shorter. Whether your dog ate it, your sibling scribbled on it, or you just didn’t get a copy in class—it’s waiting for you on Blackboard, no matter what your sorry situation is. Turnitin deadlines loom before us for essays and digital work, and a midnight server crash as everyone submits a document at the same time is practically inevitable.
All in all, as stressful as this can be for students, the introduction of technology into schools sounds like a pretty sound idea. With established deadlines and no opportunity for old excuses, it should really be fairly conducive to student productivity, as well as promoting at-home accessibility.
Unfortunately, there’s a disconnect. Technology-based at-home assignments aren’t jiving well with classwork because, despite the overlap of the two, the transition to online work is at an awkward in-between point. Teachers post online quizzes, but then request that we print and bring in a worksheet for next class. Juggling hard copies of work and document files leads to technology unfortunately hindering school work, rather than helping.
Fairfax County Public Schools recently upgraded their Blackboard site to upgrade 9.1, which features a Dashboard function that allows access to a course calendar, updates and grades, among other things. I can’t speak for all teachers, but my calendar and grade sections are both completely empty, and the updates tab is overfilled. Instead of fixing problems, Blackboard has introduced new features that makes access even more difficult than before.
FCPS needs to make a decision to move past traditional paper and pen assignments and move onto fully embracing a technology based curriculum. Until then, the confusion of being between both methods is holding students back from effectively learning.