Corrin et al. (2010) surveyed 470 Australian first year undergraduates’ use of technology. The results challenge the extent to which the so-called digital natives (Prensky, 2001) are sophisticated and adept users of online technologies to support learning. For example, most of those surveyed had never written a blog, built a website or used RSS feeds (p.646).
In addition, the students surveyed used technologies more frequently to support their everyday lives than to support their learning lives. This may suggest that their university was not encouraging or directing them to make use of a wide range of technologies to support learning. Alternatively, it may suggest that adeptness in using technologies in everyday life does not transfer seamlessly into using technologies to support learning.
Jones and Healing (2010) interviewed first-year undergraduate students in England. Their research, too, challenges the digital natives argument. Jones and Healing found that over a third of their interviewees were not confident about using university Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), or using blogs or wikis (p. 349). Similarly, only a minority in the sample stated that uploading and downloading audio and video was important for their learning, though that same minority tended to be younger students at campus universities, a fact that could be used to validate the idea of digital natives (p. 349).
Both articles show students appreciating their HEI’s VLEs, with one student in Jones and Healing’s sample praising it as ‘a central thing for everything, a central source’ (p. 350). Moreover, even if one component of the VLE was not praised (a student reported dissatisfaction with their group forum [p. 351]), this does not discourage use of the VLE as a whole. It is possible that students draw what they want from institutional VLEs, and construct their own purposes for VLEs, though the range of available uses for a VLE is shaped by the content put in by the lecturer and institution.
Jones and Healing argue that students’ use of technologies is closely related to course requirements. Hence, if H.E.I.s want students to engage with a wider range of technologies then some steerage needs to come from the H.E.I. in the design stage for individual modules. A pedagogically driven incorporation of technologies to support learning and assessment is more likely to prompt and develop engagement with technologies for learning.
References
Corrin, L. Bennett, S. and Lickyer, L. (2010) ‘Digital natives: Everyday life versus academic study,’ Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Networked Learning,’ ed. By Dirckinck-Holmfeld, L., Hodgson, V., Jones, C., de Laat, M., McConnell, D. and Ryberg, T.
Jones, C. and Healing, G. (2010) ‘Net generation students: agency and choice and the new technologies,’ Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, vol. 26, pp. 344-356.
Disruptive Technology Enhanced Learning 