Does the Internet Affect or Benefit Students Learning?

The internet has changed many aspects of our everyday lives. It has made it extremely easy to communicate and access information quickly. Over the course of the past year, many teachers have relied on the internet to teach their students due to Covid-19 restrictions. Many teachers have decided to “go paperless,” meaning that all assignments assigned to students will be online via Schoology. Since teachers and students have become extremely reliant on the internet, there are many factors that affect students’ everyday learning. The biggest factor that both students and teachers face is internet connection issues. 

Teachers around the world are having to adjust to the use of technology. But the rapid growth of technology is expected to come with internet issues. Adam Brown the System Manager of Technology Services for Visalia Unified School District (VUSD) says, “Around 10 million websites a week are visited by [VUSD] students.” 

Although students and teachers know that internet issues are likely to happen with the amount of students using VUSD’s internet daily, it still affects many student’s learning. The internet issues often add extra stress on students and teachers already stressful lives. 

Jimena Madera 23’ says, “Last week the internet was extremely slow, it was very frustrating because I couldn’t get any of my work done due to the slow and unreliable internet, we even had to reschedule a Biology test that everyone studied and prepared for due to the internet issues.” 

The internet issues were occuring due to a faulty piece of equipment which connects the network to various VUSD devices and offices around Visalia. Brown and his team are extremely dedicated to fixing any internet problems as soon as possible.

Brown says, “The Internet is a mission-critical service that must be up 24/7 these days. We take the internet and uptime very seriously.”

Even though the internet connection has it’s many issues, many teachers and students actually prefer using the internet. The internet can help benefit every day teaching and learning in many ways. 

Jason Vieira AP US History Teacher says, “From the teacher standpoint it has made grading assignments a lot easier.  I never have to worry about losing assignments also, which is a nice change.” 

Many students also prefer using the internet to learn rather than traditional textbooks and paper. Paityn Bruce 24’ says, “Personally the internet has been very beneficial to me. It helps me stay organized with my work, I used to lose important papers and homework. Now, everything is online.”