There and back again: Implementing and assessing a digital reading, research and writing application

The processes of reading, research and writing are complex and intertwined. Currently, the larger educational technology landscape requires using multiple tools to do these processes. Being able to pull them into a single tool can allow learners to focus on learning and streamlining processes instead of using their cognitive bandwidth to learn multiple new technologies. The weary travellers who conducted this study set off on a journey to discover such a tool and determine its efficacy in their various online courses across the disciplines of environmental science, nutritional science, writing studies, literature and information science. The study was conducted through a series of pre- and post-surveys asking students about the strength of their reading, research and writing skills, the ease with which they performed them, and how much they enjoyed completing the tasks associated with those skills. The travellers found that many students felt more confident in their abilities, found processes to be easier and enjoyed the processes more than they did before the tool was introduced. This case study suggests that when we remove the complexity of balancing various technology tools in our online classes, students can focus on the process and not the tool; however, there was a small subset of students who did not find the tool improved their processes because they already had processes in place that they liked. This suggests that tools that ‘rule them all’ should be introduced early in an academic career and be made available by the institution throughout a student’s time at their academic institution.