I have recently read a few recent studies on the use of social networking software and “web 2.0″ in general among students and faculty. Very interesting stuff. I also surveyd our students and wrote about it last fall here. All of these studies indicate that even though students currently in universities do use technology, but are not so interested in using it productively or socially in their studies, and most do not use software belonging to the Web 2 category. The studies conclude that most current university students are NOT what Prensky (2001) calls Digital Natives. It seems that around 20-30% of students could fall in to that category.I have observed and actually also studied the technological skills, student attitudes towards the use of technology in learning as well as their readiness to use technology (e.g. owning devices, having access etc.)

I wrote an article for a University paper about the net generation finally arriving at the university back in 2004. I wrote that according to their technology ownership (adsl connections, computers etc.) it had arrived, but that is really just a part of the story..

Read the rest of this entry »

I came accross this speach by one of the greatest thinkers and speakers of our time, Sir Ken Robinson: http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/vision-videos/sir-ken-robinson

He talks about the paradigm shift that needs to take place in education. The talk is informative, humouristic, sarcastic and he uses wonderful metaphors to illustrate his point.

Here are some quotes from his recent talk:

“We have grown up in a system of public education which is dominated by two ideas: One of them is a conception of economic utility. And you can illustrate that directly. It is implicit in the structure of the school curriculum.. In every school system there is a hierarchy of subjects..” “The curriculum is simply recognizable: Math, science and English language at the top, then the humnities and arts in the bottom..” He describes dance as the least “profitable” economically, ans thus least valued in school. “Our school are based on the premise that there are two sorts of subjects: the useful ones and the useless ones. And the useless ones fall away eventually.. especially when money becomes tight..” Read the rest of this entry »

I am just in a middle of reviewing a thesis I supervised and conducting interviews for our own research study. Both concern courses which use Ning as the web-platform. Today, it is quite common to insert all important activities taking place in an online environment on the front page. So, it would be easy to quickly take a look at what is going on, to access all active areas, such as new blog posts, forum discussions and so on. I have been criticising traditional Learning Management Systems for hiding activities in personal folders – based on my research and others’ as well: Students or teachers do not go from folder to folder to open or most often download files to see what people have written. Both recent studies however, show that neither way is good. Read the rest of this entry »

Interesting news from Canada. A student at Ryerson University is being accused of forming a Facebook group to study and I guess prepare for exams. The story does not tell what the group was actually being used for. Students could have discussed the course, the content, explained things to each other etc., or they could have exchanged, perhaps plagiarized each others’ assignments. Either ways, this tells a lot about the situation. Read the rest of this entry »