Digital natives in Hong Kong

Digital natives
I am long overdue to make posting to my Blog. In this particular posting I'd like to share with the readers that I have some results relating to both mobile lending and the use of technology by undergraduate students. I led a recent survey which asked students about their use of technology, perceived usefulness in regards to learning, and what mobile technologies they had available to them. The results were interesting. Students in Hong Kong are no different to students elsewhere and use a significant range of technologies for both social and learning purposes. In the first graph on the right it is easy to see that students' engagement with mobile technologies is both significant and purposeful. While it is clear to see that SMS and voice calls are the dominant features of the use of a mobile phone (or smart phone) there are significant numbers of students that even use these devices for Blogging or looking at Blogs. the second graph is more significant, and looks at the technologies students value for personal learning. It is very clear that students consider technology to be a key component of their learning environment and generally very useful.

In the second graph the comparative figures shown in red are students who did not value technology for a particular task, for example, some students did not perceive as downloading lectures particularly useful. However, these students were in the minority and in this example more than 55% of students valued the opportunity to download variety of course offerings.

So what? While the full data set is far more extensive and will be reported elsewhere, these two graphs provide one with evidence that the inclusion of technology as part of the learning design is likely to result in, at the very least, engaging with students in ways in which they are very familiar and value for their own learning. This current project is now completed, the results of which will support other projects and undertakings. there is a great deal more data available from the survey including some preliminary discussions with groups of students to examine some of the findings in more detail. I am currently working on a journal article with a colleague which analyses the results in more detail. If you would like more information then e-mail me directly.