Digital students in a book-oriented school: Students' perceptions of school and the usability of digital technology in schools

Today's students were born into a world of digital technology. We investigated the impact of computers and the Internet on the learning preferences of students whose schools do not use this technology in class, specifically, (a) the usability they attributed to the technology for tasks requiring the processing of information; and (b) their attitude towards the technology in relation to their attitude towards the type of learning used in school. Our focus was the history class. To this end, surveys were filled out by three different classes that do not use computers in school: one in a high school that advocates beyond-information activities and two in information-focused public (i.e., state) schools-a high school and a middle school. These attitudes were found to be negatively correlated with the legitimacy ascribed to the form of learning used in school. Specifically, the two public-school classes used digital technology in the belief that they knew better than their teacher how to pursue a school information-focused agenda, whereas the third class legitimized the form of learning used in school. In neither case, however, was there any indication of a fertile human-computer partnership, envisioned as the desired form of learning for the digital age.