We may be technology-mad but that doesn’t mean students feel comfortable about social media in the classroom – at least that’s according to Central Queensland Unviersity’s Dr Michael Cowling.
Research by Dr Cowling to be presented at an international education conference next month shows that less than 20% of students agree that Twitter should be part of the classroom and only 7% indicated that they had used any form of social media in a higher education setting before.
"Technology in the culture doesn't necessarily lead to technology in the classroom," he said on the eve of presenting his research in New Zealand.
His paper titled Tweet the Teacher: Using Twitter as a Mechanism to Increase Classroom Engagement was co-authored with Jeremy Novak from Southern Cross University.
Dr Cowling says that technology is becoming a central part of our lives, with a recent PhotoBox printing site survey showing one in four Australians uses their iPhone every single day to take a picture.
He also says that, according to the Time magazine annual Mobility survey, 62% of people check their iPhone at least once an hour and 68% of people sleep with their phone next to their bed.
"Our work confirmed this society-wide technology focus, with 84% of our students indicate that they have used social networking," Dr Cowling says.
"An increasingly digital classroom is an important consideration for unis if they wish to survive past 2025."
Dr Cowling says that, despite a high-uptake of social networking amongst the surveyed students, uptake of Twitter especially is quite low, with only 19% indicating that they had a Twitter account. The total number of Twitter users in Australia is around 2 million and the average age of Twitter users worldwide is 39 years of age. The average age of Facebook users worldwide is 38 years.
"This challenges the assumption that Twitter was common amongst digital natives and further investigation would need to be undertaken to determine if this was a significant driver of the results," he said.
"It's becoming clear that we shouldn't assume that wide adoption of technology in general life means that students want to see this technology adopted in the classroom.”
Dr Cowling says it is important for educators to consider where the use and adaptation of technology is heading and how it fits with the classroom situation.
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