Most school-aged children are currently at home. As a result, online learning has become the de facto form of education for many in the UK.

The support for each other among teachers has been good to see: there is a vibrant community of teachers on social media who exchange tips when it comes to using Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Hangouts. And a huge array of online “solutions” had to improve their server capacity overnight just to meet with the high demands of millions of children and adults working from home.

Technology sceptics would have never believed it possible. Not so long ago, they were keen to point out that the OECD’s (2015) report Students, Computers and Learning claimed that educational technology led to “no appreciable improvement”. They now probably know it’s a bit more nuanced than that. In truth, they should have known that already. There are decades of research of both more successful and less successful technology use. In the current crisis, it would be good to not just learn from current experiences as if something miraculous has happened to make edtech useful, but also to look back to those past examples, remembering that technology has improved considerably as well.

According to Escueta and colleagues (2017), the effects of blended learning (a mix of online and in-person instruction) are generally on par with those of fully in-person courses. From their review, computer-assisted learning and behavioural interventions emerge as two areas that show promise. Especially when equipped with a feature of personalisation, computer-assisted learning can be effective in helping students learn, particularly in maths. The technology essentially enables more personalisation.

As I’ve mentioned before in my columns, “personalisation” is often equated with the maligned term “differentiation”, but it would be a mistake to therefore dismiss it. As far back as the 1970s and 1980s, computer tutoring systems guided learners through each step of a problem solution by giving hints and feedback. Newer systems are sometimes called Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) and they can provide feedback on student answers as well as the thinking that goes into individual answers.

There have been several recent positive reviews in support of the effectiveness of such systems. Well-designed ITS can successfully complement and substitute other instructional models at all educational levels and in many common academic subjects.

They may even increase attainment. Kulik and Fletcher (2016), in their review of Intelligent Tutoring Systems, concluded that an “ITS typically raises student performance well beyond the level of conventional classes and even beyond the level achieved by students who receive instruction from other forms of computer tutoring or from human tutors”.

Kulik and Fletcher also look towards the future and posit that we are in the “wireless telegraph” phase, with radio yet to be developed. Advances in hardware, software, networking and instructional science can have great impact on the way the ITS of the future is shaped. Perhaps the most important variable in the successful use of technology lies in its design and implementation. But clearly an inability to implement should not be mistaken for “technology not being effective”, nor should it be used as an excuse to say it will save the world. Just consider its strengths and limitations from decades of research and use your professional judgement.

Christian Bokhove is associate professor in mathematics education at the University of Southampton

For full references, go to tes.com

This article originally appeared in the 1 May 2020 issue under the headline “The digital learning question”