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Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Study Shows Need for Technology Access

A study on the impact of mobile devices on teaching and learning found technology is helping students achieve more in their studies. Making Learning Mobile 2.0, a two-year study by wireless service provider Kajeet and the educational nonprofit organization Project Tomorrow, looked at one-to-one tablet implementation to evaluate how students used the devices in and outside of the classroom.

The research focused on 127 fifth-graders from Chicago. A majority (93%) of the students were low-income and 45% were considered English language learners. About a third said they didn’t have home Internet access at the beginning of the study.

The report found that home Internet access increased by 53% after the tablets were issued, which led to more reading and writing homework and an increase in reading and writing fluency. In addition, 60% of the students said the tablets helped them improve their reading and writing skills.

“As technology spreads through schools, students are proving eager to embrace it, but that same technology increasingly demands mobile Internet connectivity—preferably broadband—to be fully effective as a tool,” Daniel Neal, CEO and founder of Kajeet, said in an article for eSchool News. “There are still many schools without adequate wireless Internet connectivity to allow mobile devices to function to their full capability. Studies like this one show teachers, students, parents, and administrators the value of not only the technology, but the necessity for connectivity as well.”