Native or Novice?: An Exploratory Study of the Access to and Use of Digital Technologies among Pathway Students

Access to and use of technology by students deemed to be ‘Digital Natives' studying in the Higher Education (HE) sector has been an area of much interest, speculation and publication. This chapter reports on a small-scale exploratory study that aimed to uncover the digital technology access and practices in both everyday life and academic study of ‘new' international first-year ‘pathway' students at the Eynesbury Institute of Business and Technology (EIBT). The purpose of this study was to contribute to the debate on digital natives by providing a ‘piece of evidence' on the access to and use of digital technologies by a group of pre-university pathway students. This exploratory study stemmed from the realisation that EIBT lecturers could better meet the needs of the current generation and cohort of 20+ ethnically diverse students, and help them acculturate and transition as lifelong learners who are able to adapt to an evolving information landscape in Australian HE and upon their return home

Effects of Narcissism, Leisure Boredom, and Gratifications Sought on User-Generated Content Among Net-Generation Users

This research identifies the gratifications sought by the net-generation when producing user-generated content (UGC) on the internet. Members of the Net-generation want to vent negative feelings, show affection to their frieds and relatives, be involved in others' lives, and fulfill their need to be recognized. These gratifications were all found to be significantly associated with the users' various levels of participation in UGC (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, blogs, online forums, etc.) What's more, narcissism was predictive of content generation in social networking sites, blogs, and personal webpage, while leisure boredom was significantly linked to expressing views in forums, updating personal website, and participating in consumer reviews. In particular, the results showed the Net-geners who encountered leisure boredom had a higher tendency to seek interaction with friends online. Implications of findings are discussed

Reflections on the impact of social technologies on lecturers in a pathway institution

Education has evolved over time from face-to-face teaching to computer-supported learning, and now to even more sophisticated electronic tools. In particular, social technologies are being used to supple- ment the classroom experience and to ensure that students are becoming increasingly engaged in ways that appeal to them. No matter how educationally beneficial, however, new technology is affected by its users. To investigate this, lecturers at the Eynesbury Institute of Business and Technology (EIBT)—a Higher Education pathway provider—were surveyed to determine their perception and application of social technolog(ies) in their personal, but predominantly ‘professional’ lives. Utilising a qualitative and autoethnographic approach, one author provides an insight into their own attitude toward social technologies, coupled with responses to three open-ended questions. Thereafter, the same questions were posed to EIBT academic staff to understand their willingness or reluctance to use social technologies in their practice as part of their first-year pathway course(s)

Figuring Out the Interiors Through the Representation of Experiential and Interactive Environments

In the learning society, knowledge is the new capital, and the role of the designer encompasses a visionary and imaginative force that must translate the cultural dimension of the project into formal expressions but also ensure a functional and environmental character that is nowadays enhanced by digital technologies. Design does not solely restrict itself to designing the experience of use, the “economy of experience,” but introduces an innovative vision of systems or innovative access to cultural heritage in all its forms. The chapter exploits methodologies to support the experiential design process where the tools of representation are critical to simulate, prototype, and build interiors but also arrange the right set to control and validate the final perception of a space. A participatory application for the Cola Filotesio museum of Amatrice concludes the chapter: a prototype of a community center to replace by the means of a virtual environment the church of Saint Emidio, which was razed to the ground by the 2016 earthquake