Internet and computers do not help to improve student performance. But it is a matter of time – Il Sole 24 Ore

The schools have yet to exploit the potential of technology in the classroom to address the digital divide and providing every student with the skills needed in today’s connected world. And ‘This is the first conclusion which can be reached after reading the report Students, Computers and Learning OECD. In practice, countries that have made great investments in technological equipment of their schools do not have good results in performance in reading, mathematics or science. And technology has not even had a material effect regarding the inclusion and recovery for poorer students and disadvantaged. More specifically olds who use computers moderately in school tend to have a better learning of peers who use little or nothing, but those who use it massively tend worse in reading, mathematics and science. Please read the article on Nova24tech.

The interpretation of the data. According to the OECD interpretation of these results is related to a deficit in the interaction between students and teachers. Technology, they write in the report, “sometimes distracts from this valuable human engagement. Another interpretation Is that we have not yet become good enough at the kind of pedagogies That Make the most of technology; That adding 21st-century technologies to 20th-century teaching practices will just dilute the effectiveness of teaching. If students use smartphones to copy and paste prefabricated answers to questions, it is unlikely to help them to become smarter. If we want students to become Smarter than a smartphone, we need to think harder about the pedagogies we are using them to teach. Technology can amplify great teaching but great technology can not replace poor teaching “.

Here the information with the charts

The Italian old students. The Italian-olds in 2012 reached a score of 504 points in the digital reading (there were 497 in 2009). We are close to the OECD average. Indeed, as the report says, we improve your experience on “digital reading” of other students than students of other nations but we sail less than others to find information on the web. Even Italy is the fact that the use of Internet at school has not translated into better performance in yields compared to those who did not use. As for the socio-economic aspects in Italian students spend 1.5 hours online per day (less than the OECD average. Then the 99% olds have at least one computer at home (data 2012, + 2% compared to 2009 against average OECD 96%) and almost one in three has at least three (12.7%). On average each home boy goes on the internet 93 minutes per day during the week, less than the OECD average and that ‘of 104 minutes and 97 minutes on the weekend (OECD 138), while at school the minute ‘online’ are 19 (OECD average 25). The ‘Internet addicts’, or kids who are more’ than 6 hours a day in front of the computer at home, They are 5.7%, again fortunately below the OECD average and that ‘by 7.2% and in some countries approaching 10% (Denmark, the Netherlands and Greece) or exceeds (Sweden 13.2% )

Here the slides of the report.