Modular symbols and Hecke operators

We survey techniques to compute the action of the Hecke operators on the cohomology of arithmetic groups. These techniques can be seen as generalizations in different directions of the classical modular symbol algorithm, due to Manin and Ash-Rudolph. Most of the work is contained in papers of the author and the author with Mark McConnell. Some results are unpublished work of Mark McConnell and Robert MacPherson.