Session Information
06 SES 08, Young People in the Digital Society
Paper Session
Contribution
“Digital natives“ has been used as a term to describe the character of the future student of our schools and universities. In recent years several researchers and agencies have engaged themselves to find out how broad students’ competencies are, how refined their skills are and what type of meanings they assign to their skills and knowledge in the area. The large scale research project “ECAR” has been going on since 2004. In the ECAR 2011 project students and teachers are asked the following research questions:
- What kinds of information technologies are students using, and with what levels of skills?
- What do students perceive to be the value and advantages of the use of IT?
- What is the experience of students with IT in their courses?
- What obstacles do students face in their use of technology?
In several other countries, such as Norway, similar projects have organised to capture the digital “situation” of schools and children. In 2009 Norway Opening Universities published a survey similar to the ECAR study. In this paper we will report from the project where we engaged in doing an international survey related to the ECAR study, followed up by a number of focus group interviews and engagements with students. In addition we have performed similar interviews with students doing degrees in media technology and media studies, assuming students specialising in these areas are feeling more skilled and competent. It is our desire to compare the two types of students to explore what this means for the potential for using ICT in teaching and the student's learning. It is also an aim to examine where students have obtained their skills and competence in using technology.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Jones, Chris; Cross, Simon (2009). Is there a net generation coming to university? In: ALT-C 2009 "In Dreams Begins Responsibility": Choice, Evidence and Change, 8-10 September 2009, Manchester, UK. Palfrey, J. and Gasser, U. (2008) Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives . New York: Basic Books. Prensky, M. (2001) Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the horizon. NCB University Press, Vol. 9(5). Salaway, G.; Caruso, B. J.; Nelson, M.; Ellison, N. (2008): The ECAR study of undergraduate students and information technology,2008 . Research Study from the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research. Volume 8, 2008. Wilhelmsen, J.; Ørnes, H.; Kristiansen, T.; Breivik, J. (2009) Digitale utfordringer i høyere utdanning. Norgesuniversitetet IKT-monitor. (Report from a survey of use of ICT in Norwegian higher education)
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