Young people do a lot of

things with technology -

does that include learning?

Chris DaviesFebruary 2nd 2011

Young people online …

93% of 9-16 year olds go online at least weekly; 60% everyday or almost every day

most common location of Internet use is home (87%); school 63%

access by handheld device exceeds one in five in Norway, UK, Ireland and Sweden

85% 9-16 year olds use the Internet for schoolwork

(Livingstone et al. 2011 Risks and safety on the Internet. LSE London: EU Kids Online)

The Learner and their Context Project

Funded by Becta for three years from 2008

Mixed methods; team of 10 from Department of Education, Oxford Internet Institute and OUCS Learning Technologies Group

Longitudinal study of 262 young people aged from 8 years to 18+, using semi-structured interviews in schools & college

35 home visits, parents also interviewed.

1069 young people surveyed in nationally representative structured survey (through face-to-face interviews)

Research questions

1. In what ways do young people experience and use personal technologies in their daily lives? How do these ways vary within and across different age groups?

2. In what ways do young people experience and use personal technologies for learning of various kinds? How do these ways vary within and across different age groups?

Learning

the work you do as a student on a formal course of study – i.e. a course whose content and assessment is decided by professionals

the mental and social processes by which your knowledge, understanding and behaviour are configured and reconfigured throughout life

becoming self-actualised, autonomous

a reason to get your parents to buy you a computer

Technology

digital resources and networks, and the means for using those

characteristics of convergence and multi-functionality

e.g. smartphones, tablets, laptops, netbooks and games consoles

computers and the Internet

Internet use

8 12 14 17-190

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

68

9599

89

67

98 97

91

Boys Girls

%

Mobile phone use

8 12 14 17-190

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

25

84

9396

31

87

9599

Boys Girls

%

Communicating

Chatting online Use a social networking site Send and receive emails Post comments to a forum Updating info on social networking site

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

20

10

27

n/a n/a

65

56

72

36

50

78 8083

61

73

89 8893

66

79

8 12 14 17 - 19

%

Mainstream usessocial networking & communicating via SNS (social networking sites); texting; email; IM (Instant Messaging)

leisure activities online games playing; games consoles; MP3 players; TV on demand; viewing videos online;

creative activities music composition & recording; video editing and picture editing; composing stories, games etc.

participation in offline and online groups and communities, for sport, affiliations etc.

school work primarily using Word, PowerPoint, Excel; Google and Wikipedia.

Varieties of orientation towards technology

intensive users intensive & specialist users

apprenticeshipteenage mainstream users

student mainstream users

student/worker mainstream users

pre-teenage early teenage late teenage post-teenage

ambivalent users

unconnected & vulnerable learners

Pre-teenagers - apprenticeship

LH normally I go on the Internet and play like Neopets or Simms, or I just go on Word and do my homework, or I do - got to Excel and do like times tables [..] and that's all I really do. […] I've learnt how to put iTunes [...] and how to use Excel properly. [female aged 9]

TW Well I'm quite good at typing, I like just messing around, just going on all sorts of things, you know. […] Well with the computer I know quite a lot and not much problems really come up usually [male aged 9]

HF I like doing story… I like um typing up stories on my computer and um printing them out. And I like um pretending that um we’re playing schools with my sister and pretending that um a child made this and I have to read it. [female aged 8]

AJ I’m only allowed [...] well I know the password for my normal proper email address but I’m not allowed to email anyone, only my mum and dad. [so why do they want you to do that?]Because maybe --- I’m not sure really. [male aged 8]

KF sometimes you get emails and then you have attachments and then you have viruses in it which could probably kill your computer. [female aged 8]

Teenage mainstream

PO seven until I go to bed, I’m on the computer [male aged 13]

LM Um, well, when I get home, I normally go on my computer and chat to my friends, like on MSN and stuff like that. Sometimes I call them and I usually call them quite a lot, and I go on my computer quite a lot as well, and texting and stuff like that [female aged 13]

SR it’s more of like an accessory. So I’ll be sitting in my room doing homework and always have my computer on because I will always be listening to music. [female aged 15]

ET it’s more fun and stuff... Yeah, and like I’d rather do it on there because you can do like… you can play like sort of like activities and games and stuff but like you’re learning at the same time. And it’s like better… if you just sit there reading and it could be boring like. [female aged 14]

Student mainstream

Intensive users

Multitasking learners

DH I do my homework on it, like research and everything like that. Um, I talk to friends on it via MSN or Skype. I play games on it like World of Warcraft or Everquest 2 or something like that. Um, it’s mainly just those. I go on YouTube and stuff like that and look at videos. I listen to music on it. It’s my life bases around that really, I can’t… because um I couldn’t really live without the computer to be honest

[male aged 15]

Craig my mum is very paranoid about when I’m supposed to be studying and then she comes up and I’m on MSN. But the thing is that she doesn’t understand that I’m always going to be studying when I’m on a computer, from start to finish. But I need to also keep up with my friends … [male aged 15]

Sean, 17“I prefer working on a computer – I think it’s a lot better. It’s a lot more interactive, especially all the new types of media, music, video, and I think that’s the direction really it needs to go, rather than sitting down with a text book, it’s a bit boring.”

“You don’t have just a single track view, you don’t have just the textbook … by accessing the internet you get everyone’s opinion from all over the world, whether it’s right or wrong …”

“yeah, all the time. Especially helpful with homework. I think maybe ten years ago you’d phone a mate up and copy it down, but now – just on Facebook”

“nowadays you’ve got Facebook on your phone, it almost removes the need for other communications …The majority of people my age have got a smart-phone … and if you’ve got a smart-phone in class, and they explain something, you can always look it up if you don’t quite get it, on your phone there and then”

Ambivalent users

ER I never like spend a lot of time on like… well on the computer. That’s a lie. I do spend quite a lot of time on the computer, I don’t spend long on my PlayStation because I like… because sometimes teenagers get like really obsessed with them and I really don’t want to get like that because I enjoy reading and like socialising and like going out with my friends and stuff, and I don’t want to be like a self obsessed like computer freak [female aged 12]

Angela, 16I’m interested in going into medicine. So I - any university that has put up their stuff [on iTunes U], I’ll just download ALL of them and listen to the ones that I’m interested in.

I’ll just type in whatever question’s on my mind because, you know, you can put your Facebook status and ALL your friends will see that…

I am very easily distracted if I am on a computer. … So I try to stay away from it with work …

just making notes through the textbook there, and then when I’m making revision notes I go from the revision guide, and then if I’m confused about anything I go back to textbook if I am still confused go back to my teacher … if I’m confused at home, when I’m stuck there, I’ll go Google it in - like help!

Unconnected & vulnerable learners

Unconnected & vulnerable learners

‘It was bell gone and I have a lot of things that I could write and I was angry that I haven’t got a computer because I might finish it at home when I’ve got lots of time to do it. But ... when I’m at school I need to do it very fast.’ [MD, female, aged 15]

‘I usually find myself having to stop at school to do the (English) work at school, and it would be a lot better if I could just go home and I’m in my own home and I could do my work in a quiet environment where there’s no one else there. It’s easier.’ [FH, male, aged 15]

‘I was never brought up round a computer, my laptop upstairs is the first time I've really used the internet or any laptop or anything like that. … I've never used the internet chat sites or anything like that. [Int: No, which obviously lots of people spend a lot of time at, Facebook and that] : Yeah, that's why they're quick with their typing [LL, male, care-leaver, aged 17]

Young people learning in the digital age

“… need to move beyond traditional conceptions of formal versus informal ways of learning and literacy. Young people as learners move between different contexts of learning, both offline and online, in a constant flow of activities” Erstad 2011

Craig in 2010

“At the moment I am doing government and politics, media studies, and ICT”

“Media studies is going quite well, because I did it in year 11 I am interested as a hobby as well”

“The school provided year 12 with laptops, everyone received a laptop, providing they stayed on fulltime, and my laptop has become my best friend, it never leaves me”

“I’m in the Reading west forum. Its youth parliament and they have different forums and they come together - I’m a young person’s representative. We discuss agendas and things to be done. Everyone gets told something that we need to research or find out and we go away and compile a list or table”

“My mum gets me to help her with her work, because she is not as good with computers, so I help her research and type stuff up”

Martin, 15

I occasionally research things which come into my head, mainly questions about physics or space

A little bit every day I would say … on help threads … with how to use tools, or how things work

uses iPod Touch, for “browsing the Internet when I don’t have enough time to start a computer … what’s wrong with a three inch screen really?”

Formal learning“Geography homework we have on the Internet and it was to research one volcano, and explain the causes and the impacts of it and so I needed to look on the Internet for Vesuvius and I saw why it occurred and what the impacts were on the people and the environment around.”

“on some topics [learning platform] would give you the websites but on others it’s more of a broad range and so you get to choose what you research”

“then you upload on the intranet to the teacher … the teacher marks it on the intranet and gives you a grade and a comment”

“I think it’s good that way as well … because it’s kind of there for you, you see all your grades and all, what you’ve done, and you can go back onto those homeworks quite easily” (TB male aged 15)

Developing autonomous lifelong

learnersConvenience & appeal vs. risk & distraction

Independence vs. regulation

Orientations towards learning with technology:

strategic compliance

strategic redefinition

internalized adjustment

Collaboration, trust and engagement