Training arithmetic and orthography on a web-based and socially-interactive learning platform

Reading and writing (i.e., literacy) as well as numerical skills (i.e., numeracy) are key competencies in modern knowledge societies. Although digital media is nowadays part and parcel of children's and youngsters' everyday life, literacy and numeracy education is still largely based on paper-pencil approaches. To overcome this gap and to complement formal education by more informal learning settings, we developed, implemented and evaluated a web-based and socially-interactive learning platform. The platform hosts several learning games and aims at enhancing secondary school students' orthography and arithmetic skills. In a pilot evaluation (Study 1), we observed the orthography games to specifically corroborate 5th and 6th graders spelling performance. On the other hand, we only found general intervention effects with respect to arithmetic. To supplement these results by the perspective of those who may wish to use the platform for educational purposes, we also conducted a survey among teachers (Study 2). The survey provided an informative basis on the estimated difficulty and relevance of learning topics in orthography and arithmetic as well as on the use and acceptance of computer-supported teaching methods in general. Thereby, we gained important indications on how to further improve the learning platform and the embedded games. Taken together, the results of Study 1 and 2 were promising and revealed that computer-supported learning environments may be used to corroborate literacy and numeracy skills in formal education.