Students give e-learning a grade of incomplete by Sarah Boesveld

"They’re addicted to Facebook and slaves to their smartphones — “digital natives” trying to navigate the post-secondary world. But as universities spend millions on e-learning tools to help cater to this tech-savvy generation, current students say they’re learning more in classes that don’t have all the technological bells and whistles." writes Sarah Boesveld, National Post.

Photo: National Post

In fact, the first Canadian study of its kind has discovered that students prefer — and learn more — when a live lecturer stands at an unadorned podium. The finding surprised even the study’s authors.

"We were expecting to see evidence of what’s known as the ‘digital native’ era and we just didn’t see that," said Joseph Berger, director of business development and communications at Higher Education Strategy Associates, the Canadian education consultancy that published the study Thursday.

"It’s not the portrait we expected whereby students would embrace anything that happens on a more highly technological level. It’s to the contrary — they really seem to like access to human interaction, a smart person at the front of the classroom."


You can read the report here (PDF)


The study went on to find that more than half of respondents said they would be more likely to skip courses with more online resources because it’s easier to catch up later. Four out of five students said they’d rather watch a live stream of a lecture than attend it in person.
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Related links
Higher Education Strategy Associates 

E-learning Not Yet Leading to Improvements in Quality, Satisfaction (PDF)

Source: National Post