The dog ate my homework; a classic excuse as to why you couldn’t turn in your homework. But sadly, this doesn’t really fly anymore. Today, far more students have to do online vocabulary reviews, watch videos, do quizzes, and create online presentations to be shown in class the next day.
Unfortunately, this means that you actually might not finish your homework due to a slow/ dead internet connection or software and hardware problems. Don’t let slow internet dictate your grades. Here are a few tips for solving the problem.
Prioritise Homework
Getting your homework done may be your highest priority. However, that doesn’t mean your home internet connection is giving priority to the computer you’re trying to finish it on. The router may prioritise your sibiling’s live-stream video game or your mum’s live-streamed movie. One solution is to talk to your family and ask them to free up some bandwidth. They can still play their movies and games but turn off the live stream and watch it in standard definition.
Family members listening to music could also switch to files saved on their computer or go retro and listen to the radio. Ask them to stop the file sharing and cryptocurrency mining so that the most important work – homework and actual paid work – get first crack at your bandwidth without worrying about hitting the data limit.
Secure Faster Internet
The long-term solution is to get faster internet with a cap so high that it doesn’t matter. After all, you don’t want fast internet that lets you get half way through the month before everything is throttled. iSelect will help you find the fastest internet possible. This will allow you to watch videos in high definition without delays, and you won’t have to wait for files to download to review them.
Make the Most of Your Connection
There are several ways you can ensure you make the most of your internet connection. Save files locally as well as to the cloud. When you want to watch a presentation, try to watch it embedded in a website that downloads it. Work with partners from a shared document repository instead of emailing large files to each other.
This has the side benefit of preventing someone from working from an old version when everyone else is reviewing the latest one. When you’re working on schoolwork, kill the music and video streaming in the background. Turn off your computer when you’re done with it, unless it’s running updates and installing patches. Reboot things once in a while to force it to free up resources and kill programs running in the background.
Image credit: Slow Internet via Lisa S./Shutterstock