Abstract:
Globally universities are grappling with how they should be adapting to the new generation of university students who are purported to be “tech savvy” and to learn in different ways. The South African higher education sector, with its changing and increasingly diverse student body, is facing similar concerns. This preliminary study seeks to inform this issue by investigating what computer experience academics can expect students to have, how students learn to use computers, how they solve problems and how they acquire new computer skills. We find differences in age and experience and suggest that whilst there is a small distinct group of students who show the characteristics of the “digital native”, there is much diversity in how students come to learn and continue to learn about computers. We observe too that although younger students of all levels of experience are learning informally, universities still have a very important role to play in terms of training and support.

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Brown, C, Czernieiwcz, L. and Pedersen, J. (2008) Doing it for themselves? How South African university students learn to use computers for their studies. Paper presented in a conference on World Wide Web Apps.