Students’ ICT use

In their review of literature to assess the relationship between the use of ICTs and students’ performance, Ben Youssef & Dahmani found that ICTs can have an influence on students’ performance and achievement (2008). This sounds promising but not very reassuring. The possibility exists for ICTs to improve teaching and learning but to what extent? Hoffman & Vance set out to assess what their students really know about ICTs and to find out who had taught those (2005). This was motivated by the lack of literature to inform educators on how tech savvy their first

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year students really are. They conducted an online survey with 800 first year students at Quinnipiac University, Houston. Their results revealed that students learned traditional applications like word processing at home; how to use instant messaging from friends and how to use search engines in formal education settings (ibid.). This implies that students determine what they want to know about a certain technology. Their study shows that lecturers cannot assume that all students have the same insight to different technology applications, which creates an obstacle for the incorporation of ICTs in higher education. The students’ need to know how an application works, will determine the acquisition of the specific digital skills. Where does the lecturer start: with the use of technology or with teaching about the technology? To what extent can the lecturer assume that students are ready to incorporate technology in their classes?

Kennedy, et al. warned universities not to assume that all first year students have the same technological abilities or expectations (2007). They had assessed 2588 students from three Australian universities, and found that their students were “nowhere near as frequent users of new technologies as some commentators have suggested” (ibid.: 522). This is because not enough is known about the benefits or misunderstandings of technology as they relate to the critical student outcomes (Nora & Snyders, 2008).

The Namibian ICT policy for education “stresses the importance of integrating ICT across the curriculum, rather than teaching about ICT”, thus teaching should be focused on the use of the tool (Beukes-Amiss & Chiware, 2008). Lea & Jones concurs that lecturers should focus on teaching with technology and not on the technology (2011). Their study showed that undergraduate students from three higher education institutions in the UK had a lot of experience with technology in their daily activities. However, these students were not willing to transfer their social technological skills to an educational context (ibid: 390). Some of the complexities lecturers experience rest in the lack of not knowing what their students really know about technology; how willing students are to transfer that knowledge to an academic setting; and how proficient their students are in the use of various technological applications (Lea & Jones, 2011, Adam, 2003). However, to teach with technology on the assumption that first year students know how to use the tools can be misleading and result in frustration for both lecturers and students. This is crucial

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especially since Kennedy et al. warned that first year students’ use of technology in their daily lives “is by no means ubiquitous” (2007 in Lea & Jones, 2011:378). This concurs with Czerniewicz & Brown (2013) who found that first year South African students are not a homogeneous group of students with equal digital literacy.

2.4.1 Technology use outside school

Despite the language obstacle, Kirkland who studied “the literacies of urban youth in social media” revealed that youngsters regularly use technology, especially to escape their daily reality (2009). The key component for me in his study is the warning that access to a keyboard will not automatically resolve all the obstacles of technology in the classroom (ibid: 18). This highlights that the use of technology in the classroom is more than just access, language also plays a role and the level of competence of both the students and facilitators with the technology (Gudmundsdottir, 2010, Halvorsen, 2012). This is evident in the study by Naidoo & Raju where the majority of students from Durban University of Technology, only had access to a computer when they entered university, which resulted in these students struggling with “basic computer skills” (2012: 34). Their study called for the need to first equip first year students at higher institutes of learning with computer literacy skills to even the skill competency in especially computer related subjects.

2.4.2 The role of the facilitator

The previous section alluded to the fact that the lecturer in front of the students or the teacher in front of the learners, has to be competent and comfortable with using technology. Kennedy, et al. asserts common poor assumptions of, teachers and students’ combination of use and experiences with new technologies can be damaging to how ICTs are integrated (2007). The problem we create with the integration of technology is that we assume all students are at the same level of technology competency; just because they have access to the latest technologies on a regular basis (Geer & Sweeney, 2012).

Geer & Sweeney investigated the usefulness of allowing learners at an Australian primary school, to inform teachers of the technology tools that they should integrate in the learners' learning (2012). The writers felt that giving learners a voice, as to the type of technology tools to be used in class, can clear obstacles for the teacher. They found that learners have preconceived ideas of the type of technologies they would like to use as part of their learning (Geer & Sweeney, 2012). The sooner the

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teachers are aware of their learners’ technology expectations; they can prepare themselves for the incorporation of those technologies to enhance their teaching. Their study revealed that these primary school learners wanted their teachers to provide the opportunities to use more challenging technology tools. This implies that if a teacher is not familiar with a specific technology, it will not be used and it directly affects the learners’ eagerness to experiment with different types of technologies, constraining their learning. These authors study concluded that the learners felt the teacher was central to their learning process, but the teacher also limited their technology integration, at times because of the “teacher’s lack of knowledge about a technology” (Geer & Sweeney, 2012:301). Students need to be given the opportunity to grow in the types of technologies they can use to enhance their learning process. This is essential to ensure the learners will be ready to participate in a technology oriented world of work. Their study stresses the importance of the teacher to be knowledgeable about the different types of technologies available; “… its (teaching and learning) effectiveness is very much dependent on the teacher having a sound pedagogical understanding of how technologies can be effectively employed to enhance student learning” (Geer & Sweeney, 2012:302). In addition, their study highlights the importance of the need for the teacher to be digitally literate. If the teacher fails, the learner fails to learn and develop the necessary technology skills to survive at university. If the lecturer fails to develop the students’ ICT skills, the student can fail in the world of work.

Others have also stressed the central role the teacher plays in developing the learners’ ICT skills to ensure they will become competent technology users (Fu, 2013, Sanders, 2012, Wilhelm 2012). This is a lot of pressure on the teacher, especially for those who had not received any ICT training. Pedro encouraged teachers to change the way they perceive ICTs from a threat to an investment in their professions development (2003).

However, before lecturers incorporate technology, they need to know what type of digital literacy skills their students have. In addition, classrooms are filled with technology savvy students who do not have the skills to link these technical specific skills to enhance their learning (Kenny et al., 2007, Nelson, Courier & Joseph, 2011, Williamson, 2011). It is one thing to teach with different technological tools but does our teaching develop the necessary digital literacy skills of our students? Siegle

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states that educators should work on helping students learn new literacies, which will not be developed with mere access to computers (2004). Bourdieu stressed the importance to appropriate and use tools. Digital literacy skills form an essential part of the students’ learning process but where do educators start?

Bourdieu emphasised the importance of the teacher’s role in interpreting the dominant academic discourse for students (Bourdieu et al., 1965/1994: 8, in Grenfell, 2009: 443). It therefore follows that the lecturer should create a learning environment where all students can develop digital literacy. Bourdieu's theory highlights the important role the lecturer has in sharing information with- and equipping the student. The lecturer needs to help the students gain the necessary cultural capital to successfully use the technology to enhance learning.