With the huge explosion in technology that the 21st century has seen, many new innovative systems have been developed to help students and teachers organize, assign and complete school work more effectively and efficiently.
Before the internet, all school assignments were assigned in class, completed with pen and paper, and turned in during class. While this option is still available to teachers, most choose to use online classrooms such as Google Classroom, Canvas and Infinite Campus to organize their students’ assignments and grades.
This new way of doing school work allows teachers to assign work at any time, set due dates for any time, and upload grades at any time on any of the online systems.
However, with the multitude of different programs and due dates, it can be quite a hassle for students. In the past, it was as simple as turning in the assignments at the beginning of class and being assigned new projects during class time. Now most students have assignments due all throughout the day, including outside school hours, to be completed in a variety of ways.
“It can be challenging keeping up with the assignments of all my classes when they can be due at any time. Usually assignments are just due at midnight, but sometimes there will be assignments due at eight or ten at night. On top of that you also have assignments due at the start of most classes,” said PV senior Matt Pischke.
While the constant due times can be a hassle for students, the variety of platforms can also cause problems. Some classes use Google Classroom, others Canvas, and still others use paper and pen.
“Most of the teachers at Pleasant Valley use Google Classroom for assignments, and a good amount do paper homework, but all the teachers at Scott Community College use Canvas. Even if an assignment is on Google Classroom it doesn’t mean that you turn it in there, sometimes you complete the assignment on one site and turn it in on another like turnitin.com. There’s a lot of different ways homework can be assigned and completed and it can be hard to keep track of,” said PV senior Vamsi Challa.
Online classrooms and grading systems certainly pose many new challenges to students, but they also provide many advantages. They allow students to create and edit work much quicker than would be possible on paper. A presentation visual aid that used to take a large amount of time to craft now only takes a minute with the use of PowerPoint or Google Slides.
