ABSTRACT
From the perspective of a child growing up, life offers great learning opportunities on a 24/7 basis. Children have learnt all day throughout history. In fact, for the greatest part of human history, “play” rather than “school” constituted the most prominent learning environment for most children. What has also changed is that many children growing up in the 21st century have a greater range of information sources at their disposal. Worldwide communication and media networks give children the opportunity to engage in synchronous and asynchronous interaction, or to observe other people’s interactions, on a global scale. Not all types of homework have been found to be equally productive and the effects are much stronger for older children and adolescents in secondary education than for young children in the early grades of primary education. The physical and emotional features of the home environment in which children grow up have a potentially strong impact on their intellectual development and their academic success.
