The Educause Center for Applied Research (ECAR) recently released its fourth annual research study on the role of technology in student life, which describes their findings of the ways college students use technology and the impact this may have on instruction. In case you don’t want to leaf through the 122-page PDF, you can read Andy Guess’s article in Inside Higher Education for an excellent analysis of the study. But the ECAR report is well worth reading. The tables and stats alone will come in handy for you to whip out at any cocktail party when the discussion turns to “these kids today”.
Researchers found that as suspected, college students are using technology like crazy.
Among the interesting statistics:
- 73% of students have laptops (although half don’t bring them to class)
- Average hours per week on the Internet: 18
- 81.6% of students use social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace
- 74.7% have music/video devices
- 85.1% use instant messaging
- 43.1 % accessed a wiki every week
- Over 70% use the Internet (including library databases) for research
This study shows that student use of communication tools such as text messaging, IM, and social networking sites has increased significantly—up 11% since the last study in 2006. Students also make frequent use of Blackboard, email, and discussion boards in their academic work. But although this generation of college students has grown up immersed in these new technologies, they are not ready to abandon real-life human interaction quite yet. Researchers found “themes of skepticism and moderation alongside enthusiasm” among the students regarding the use of technology in courses, noting that 59 percent of students preferred a “moderate rather than extensive use of IT in courses.”
One theme that emerged from the study was that many students found that “the poor use (underuse/overuse/inappropriate use) of technology by faculty detracts from the learning experience.” Complaints included time wasted trying to make equipment work, poorly facilitated discussion boards, and poorly-trained faculty. It is good to know the youth of today are discerning customers. Students won’t buy into the use of technology unless a faculty member can use it well and integrate it meaningfully into the curriculum. Students know that technology alone is no substitute for good teaching practices.
Although student opinion seems to be a bit mixed about the use of technology in the classroom, the overall message of the report is clear: the times are changing and instructors must face the reality that this generation of “digital natives” has grown up with higher expectations for the skillful use of technology and has different ways of learning and accessing information. These new technologies aren’t going away and will just evolve into a Web 3.0 and 4.0 and so on. In the introduction, Harvard professor Chris Dede summarizes the entire state of affairs in one sentence: “Our ways of thinking and knowing, teaching and learning are undergoing a sea change and what is emerging is both rich and strange.” Dede recommends that educators work towards a pedagogical model that fuses the old methods and new, but as this is a bit easier said than done.
The Inside Higher Education article posed some interesting questions regarding the report that I’ve adapted a bit: “How can educators adapt their teaching methods to these emerging technologies? And should they? How are you dealing with this “sea change” and navigating through this ocean of wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, and all things Web 2.0?
This is very informative. I work in a school and I am so thrilled to know that technology in the schools is being used, even by high school and college aged children and young adults. I feel that technology in the school system is a much needed tool. Children today and faced with so many challenges and to be able to access the internet and use this information at school is awesome!
I couldn’t agree more — these kids today are embracing technology at every level. As an educator in elementary education I can honestly say that it is a constant struggle for me to stay on top of the technology in use in schools and by kids. Kids are like sponges in this regard — they want to learn it, are invested in learning it and as a result, are using technology in every facet of their lives. The numbers stated above regarding technology use on university campuses will only continue to increase as current elementary students move into college. University professors and instructors will need to be prepared for this –they will need to know about and be able to use the same technologies that students are using, not just because the technology is out there, but because more and more students are using assistive technology to help them learn and compensate for learning differences. Technology in the classroom is not the wave of the future any longer — the future is now and teachers across the board, from preschool to the post graduate level will need to be competitive in this area, or risk being left behind. The same holds true for schools and, more specifically, Universities on a broader spectrum; those who shy away from offering online classes and technologically structured classes and classrooms may run the risk of losing prospective students to more technologically savvy schools. In no way am I purporting that the infusion of technology in education is an easy or quick task. However, teachers of all levels need to realize not only that technology has arrived, but that it is staying and a plan for integration is necessary in order to continue to best serve all students and meet their needs most effectively.
Jeanne, Thanks for bringing this report to everyone’s attention.
This recent ECAR study presents impressive evidence of the continuing growth of use and sophistication of America’s youth regarding information technology and its educational uses. It sounds a well-founded warning that higher education institutions, and their faculty, in particular, had better prepare themselves for an increasingly technology savvy and critical audience. It also warns against giving up the face time that so many students need and value. This is an important message for traditional colleges and universities pondering how to strike the right balance in the format of their educational offerings.
One caveat I would enter about the study, however, is that averages comprised of the scores of survey participants who vary widely in age, socio-economic background, educational objectives, etc., may mask the needs of particular audiences, rather than revealing them. Reading the ECAR study, one might easily draw the conclusion that students prefer classroom-based courses that make appropriate use of technology. This may be true of the majority of students, but in a pool of 16 million or more students in higher education, a minority of 23 percent who either do not have such a preference (question 3.1) or whose circumstances make online education the only practical alternative (not asked in the survey), would include more than 3 1/2 million students. I would like to know the other characteristics of students who indicated a preference for courses that made extensive or exclusive use of information technology.
When I read studies on the use of technology by college students, such as this ECAR study, I eagerly look for evidence that will help us build better online and hybrid courses. The widespread exposure of course management systems, even among students who are not taking online courses, indicates that we are not far from the day when nearly every course will be supported by a CMS. This phenomenon makes even more urgent the kinds of standards and good practices built into the Quality Matters Rubric.
The most common shortcomings of CMS-based learning activities identified in the survey, “difficulty of use, technical problems [and] instructors’ poor or inconsistent CMS use,” mirror issues addressed in the QM continuous improvement process. And all the CMS processes that students report using with varying degrees of satisfaction are addressed in the QM standards. Students expect these elements to be present properly implemented. One example is “online access to sample exams and quizzes for learning purposes.” QM Standard 3.5 states: ““Self-check” or practice types of assignments are provided for timely student feedback.” Interestingly while this type of material ranks second in the ECAR survey evaluation of students’ preferred online activities, behind only grade checking, it is one of the most frequently missing elements of online and hybrid courses reviewed through the QM Rubric. Clearly, we have work to do!
In terms of future directions for online, hybrid and web enhanced courses, the ECAR study shows rapidly growing student interest in blogs, Wiki’s, games, and simulations. These activities can have a huge impact on the interactivity that Quality Matters believes is so important to successful online learning. The challenge will be to adapt these tools to different types of subject matter and course objectives. This can only happen with faculty and instructional designers working hand in hand.
Jeanne,
I add my thanks to Ron Legon’s to you for bringing this article to public attention here. I am also glad to see Ron’s reference to the work of Quality Matters. That is the problem in a nutshell when we talk about utilizing technology for educational purposes – “Quality Matters”. I am also glad to see his mention of Web 2.0 social networking tools as encouraging the interactivity and engaged learning experiences that I also see as critical for quality educational experiences.
I was interested in Ron’s comments about CMS use. From a student, administrative, and teaching perspective, I think the current state of CMS applications is seriously outdated. I was glad to hear from Blackboard at a recent SLATE conference in Chicago that Blackboard is very aware that there are changes that are critical for the design of CMS applications to keep up with the current trends of technology toward web 2.0 interactivity and beyond. I wonder if these mammoth companies can change direction fast enough? Also, it appears that to fully utilize some of the commercial products it could cost up towards a million dollars per year. That is certainly infeasible for most smaller schools, so it will be interesting to see how the pricing structures of CMS programs impacts the economic viability of the companies who design them moving forward.
Thank you for bring this thought provoking topic forward!
This is a very helpful discussion. As someone who teaches in the classroom, I have tried to integrate not just technology, but different types of media into my curriculum. The internet is a treasure trove of historical film clips, documentaries, etc., and I have either made them available in a streaming format through the class website (e.g., the course ‘Blackboard’ site), or through links on the website (Frontline documentaries are my favorite). In some respects, I am using multi-media as another resource (like assigned texts) to engage the students in the broader topic. Just like reading assignments, though, I have found that without a strong incentive system – i.e. writing requirements or specifically including material on the exams – students will likely not view this on-line material, regardless of the quality.
The one thing that I have not done, however, is to integrate technology into the classroom. On the one hand, this is because it doesn’t fit my style. I demand a lot of conversation and participation, and do not want to use limited class time for showing extended videos. One pet peeve of mine is course evaluations that read: “He should show more films in class…” This reinforces the image that students are there to be entertained (i.e. to be passive consumers) and not engaged. Also, I write on the board a great deal instead of using a power-point presentation. I find it much more engaging, and allows for a much higher degree of spontaneity, digression, etc.
One other reason that I tend not to use technology in the classroom is that the AV equipment is not always user-friendly, nor is it always functional. One example of the former issue is from a colleague of mine who recently wanted to show several segments of a DVD in class. However, in order to view only selected scenes rather than the entire two hour film, she needed a remote control for the DVD player. This, of course, had to be obtained from the University library (with an ID left as collateral), and had to be returned after class. It was a ridiculous amount of effort for five or six minutes of in-class viewing. Alternately, one could have the images scanned and posted on the course website, but, again, that is a labor-intensive effort. Finally, I should note that I am an “Apple” person, and use nothing but Macs; unfortunately, much of the AV equipment available in the classrooms in which I work are on the Windows platform.
Very interesting…..as so many of us know, the combination of online instruction with innovative technology can provide a learner an opportunity to learn new material and concepts. However, if instruction is poorly designed, students won’t learn no matter what tools are implemented. I see this a lot — technology used by faculty solely for the purpose of saying, “yeah, I have a technology component in my class.”
I’d rather see a few lessons use technology effectively and provide solid instruction than lots of lessons that implement poor technology use and deliver poor instruction.
Regarding Allyson’s comments, Bb is hopefully listening, and incorporating a lot of Web 2.0 technologies into their Content Management System. We haven’t quite seen the effect of the merger of Blackboard with WebCT, and personally, I’m hoping that they are going to take the best of both products and produce a hybrid CMS tool that is really going to rock!
As a professor and an instructional technologist, I have to constantly remind myself that the way I learn does not mean that my students are going to learn in the same manner. I can’t listen to a podcast, juggle my cell phone, take notes on my laptop, and enter data on my PDA simultaneously. I need –quiet–. Yet, several of my students can juggle a myriad of technology tasks at once and retain, synthesize and do a great job of critically analyzing new information all at once. It truly is a whole new world out there….
Technology is a tool, just like a book. If students want to learn, they will use it effectively; if they just want to do the minimum to get by, they’ll do that too.
I’ve had students in my freshmen classes with laptops who weren’t taking notes but gaming and IM-ing. One did this in all of his classes, flunked all of the assignments, and dropped out of school mid-quarter. In my grad classes students don’t do this (that I am aware of) but many wait until the last minute to post to discussion board, which mitigates its value. I make clear my expectations about how they should post, but last minute posts tend to be shallow. I’ve tried giving extra points for early posts, but that gives too much weight to the discussion board in the overall grade. Maybe I can’t come up with threads that are interesting enough.
I also hate to correct a student in writing on a public discussion board when they say something that is dead wrong. In class I can soften the blow by using implication and calling on someone else. The written word is very personal and unforgiving. In a written message I find it hard to say “you’re wrong” without making it sound like a personal rebuke.
Piggybacking on Jeanne’s comment about the changing views of technology by our students, I want to share an observation that truly opened my eyes about instructional technologies. Last week, when I again urged my freshmen seminar students to coordinate with their groups via Blackboard, one of the young women said to me that IM was just so much faster and easier and Blackboard groups were clunky and she had to remember to login. One of the reasons I have opted to use Blackboard groups is so I have a record of their collaboration; but this student’s remark forced me to realize that, at least for this particular assignment, that level of teacher control is really not necessary.
My objective for dividing the students into groups is to have them learn to collaborate in planning a series of activities. While there is an academic goal underlying the assignment, it struck me that the other objective was to help them become comfortable with their peers. It only makes sense that they are going to employ a means of communication that is familiar to them. And for this purpose, it would be short sighted to restrict that communication to Blackboard.
Obviously, there will be other projects during their Loyola careers for which they will need the tools that Blackboard supplies–and to my defense, I am attempting to teach them to learn these technological applications that they will need to use in future courses. But this one, simple comment forced me to reflect on how quickly things change and how we all need to be flexible in our prescriptions of good uses of technology.
When we let technology drive, we run the risk of a rigid construct that does not allow for new ideas. So this semester, I keep my IM open–along with my teaching RADAR–and will assess the results of the new group concept my students introduced.
Keeping along with the theme of this thread, I wanted to share a little “unscientific quasi-experiment” that I conducted to satisfy my own innate curiosity about the relationship between technology exploration and age. There is a pretty humorous foreign website,
{ http://www.1-click.jp/ } sponsored by a website development organization which features a man speaking in a foreign language. (I can only hope that he is not saying anything inappropriate)!
If you click on the man, he runs through a series of foreign web pages. It’s pretty darn cool to watch your computer automatically jump from one website page to another, all the while watching the man run around each page…….
Anyways, I randomly chose a bunch of people to send the website to. Several were under the age of 30; many were over the age of 30. What was fascinating to me was that MOST of the under 30 folks wrote to me to tell me how cool this applet was. They weren’t afraid to explore, and clicked on the man on the screen, and hence were able to watch him run around various web pages.
MOST, (not all, but a very large percentage) of the over 30 group had a completely different reaction. Almost all of them sent me e-mails and wrote, “There is a man on my screen speaking a foreign language, what is the purpose of this website, — why on earth did you send this to me?” This particular subset never thought to “explore” the page by clicking around, or more importantly, clicking on the man featured on the page to see what would happen.
This was done for fun, and is purely unscientific. However, I do see this type of behavior a LOT. My younger students are willing to explore, and aren’t afraid that they might make a mistake, click in the wrong place, or cause the technology to malfunction. My older students tend to be cautious, and often rely on me to provide specific directions detailing exactly what I want them to do on a website or how to operate a new piece of technology.
I think there is a “research experiment in the making” here!
This is very informative. I work in a school and I am so thrilled to know that technology in the schools is being used, even by high school and college aged children and young adults. I feel that technology in the school system is a much needed tool. Children today and faced with so many challenges and to be able to access the internet and use this information at school is awesome!