The internet is a vast and ever-changing medium, and with that comes much discussion of its users and their capabilities to adopt and use the internet. This study aims to advance the digital native vs. digital immigrant discussion and present a theoretically-driven understanding of the adoption process by evaluating individuals on their internet usage behaviors over that of mere demographics. This study found that by looking at users' breadth of use, ease of use and internet self-efficacy, online participation in various forms is more accurately predicted. Through the Diffusion of Innovation Theory and the Social Cognitive Theory researchers can better understand this process as it relates to changing digital media and thus harness tools that will enable users to adopt more quickly. / text

Children and teenagers of today have grown up with digital media. According to Olle Findahl's report "The Swedes and the Internet" (2009), adults as well as children are online more and more. Our experience is that at many workplaces as good as everyone use computers and everyone is expected to have digital skills. However at most schools the reality is far from this. According to Findahl's report from 2009, 99 percent of all pupils (in Sweden) have access to computers and Internet, yet it is rare that they get school assignments where the use of Internet is acquired (Findahl 2009). The purpose of our paper is to understand how digital media can be used as a resource for learning, through the perspective of young people. The goal of this study is to understand how pupils make meaning2of digital media as a resource for learning. Therefore we found it essential to examine how the conditions and opportunities in the schools affect young people's reflections. In order to achieve this we chose to use qualitative data collection methods such as observations and unstructured group interviews. We observed two different classes of core subjects, and conducted two unstructured group interviews with pupils from Tumba gymnasium. One of our results, and the most essential one, was a pattern of an abstract phenomenon. Teachers describe students as fed up and unmotivated, the students themselves say that "it's just boring". This is a fact that is accepted by teachers and students without deeper reflection. "It's school." We refer to this phenomenon as "the abstract tediousness" which constitutes the core of our analysis. "The abstract tediousness" is the result of what happens when teachers do not make meaning of what they are teaching their pupils, which therefore makes the pupils feel uninvolved. The absence of creative tasks and a structure of hierarchy where the presence of the pupils is of greater importance than the assignment itself, also contributes to "the abstract tediousness". Another element that can be explained by the phenomenon "the abstract tediousness" is that pupils can’t make relevant digital media because they get caught up in an endless argument about the importance of grades. Our conclusion is that the pupils cannot make relevant digital media as a resource for learning because the schools fail in explaining the importance of learning.

Denna studie berör nyanlända eritreaner, bosatta i Botkyrka kommun, upplevelse av digitaliserad samhällsinformation. Studien har tre huvudsakliga frågeställningar 1. Söker sig min valda grupp till digital myndighetsinformation gällande arbete, bank samt boende och hur upplevs den i sådant fall? 2) På vilket sätt upplever eritreanska nyanlända svenska myndigheters e-förvaltning? 3) Hur kan man diskutera nyanlända eritreaners situation utifrån begreppen digital natives/digital immigrants? Studiens centrala teori är den digitala klyftan som berör frågor om digital integrering, och olika typer av internetanvändning. Vidare lyfts faktorer som utmärker mediekunnighet och slutligen den digital klyftan i samband med medborgarskap och e-förvaltning. Det empiriska materialet har nåtts genom att tillämpa kvalitativa metoder i form av en individuell intervju med en anställd på Botkyrka kommuns socialtjänst för att få en överblick över etableringsprocessen vad gäller nyanlända i kommunen. Därefter utfördes en pilotstudie med två eritreanska nyanlända som intervjuades för att sedan utföra en gruppintervju med åtta nyanlända eritreaner i form av en gruppintervju med inslag av etnografiska metoder. Resultatet av studien visade att majoriteten av respondenterna upplevde en ganska grav digital klyfta vad gäller e-förvaltning och digital blanketthantering. På detta vis kunde tecken visas som tillhör begreppet digital immigrant. Däremot har de inte behövt anpassa sig till det digitala landskapet vad gäller sociala medier och underhållande medieaktivitet, som är tendenser vi ser bland digital natives. Detta visade deras komplexa situation om att befinna sig i ett mellanförskap i förhållande till begreppen digital native och digital immigrant.

The rise of the digital technology, social networking or interactivity have an extensive impact on what is happening in virtual world. Users of Internet are more and more often introduced to the new available on-line tools. Some of them have adapted those new trends with no problems and they have been taking an advantage of them with an ease, whereas others have had problems with converting themselves into the new digital era. Alternatively, others are not fascinated by what Internet offers or they simply cannot afford it due to many circumstances. However, with no doubts, we can say that the Internet and the digital revolution brought about many issues to discuss or to have a research about. To some extent, new trends, especially the expansion of the Internet, are affecting all traditional media and this, in my opinion, might result in the new phenomena like potential division of society into Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants proposed by Prensky (2001a).The project focused on investigating motives for choosing sport websites by both groups with special consideration of interactivity factor. The motives have been checked via in-depth interviews using the sample of ten interviewees both private and professional users of Polish sport informative websites. I wanted to check whether my results either duplicate what Prensky described in his articles or they confirm contradictive opinion given by VanSlyke.Additionally, I have compared those most popular motives with sample of five most often visited Polish sport informative websites, according to Alexa rank (2012). The level of interactivity on those websites was assessed by an appearance of examples of new new media like blogs, podcasts, number of posts on Facebook fan pages, created account on Twitter or channel on YouTube (Levinson, 2010). Also possibility of commenting was taken into consideration. Having checked those variables via cyber ethnography method (secondary method) I was able to identify which of the sampled websites could be considered as most interactive one.Despite persisting limitations, the method has brought reliable and valid data, according to which I have given my conclusions by answering research questions stated at the beginning of this project.

Syftet med studien var att få fördjupad kunskap om teknikämnets möjliggörande inför digitaliseringstillägget 2018/2019. Dessa frågor har besvarats genom ett kvantitativt metodval i form av online-enkäter. Resultatet visade att lärare generellt skattar sin digitala kompetens gällande programmering som lågt. Äldre lärare skattar sin digitala kompetens lägre än yngre lärare, samtidigt som de skattar sitt stödbehov högre.

Purpose/Aim: Our purpose with this study is to examen the differences in communication between digital immigrants and digital natives, how the digitization has changed our way to communicate in an interpersonal matter. Main Results: Through our study we have concluded that barriers do exist between students (natives) and teachers (immigrants), but not to the extent we first predicted. The digitization has resulted in a change in the way we communicate and our relation to each other. But in a purely communicative matter, the digitization hasn’t made it harder for natives and immigrants to understand each other, but it has contributed to new vocabulary and the use of the language. New codes has been developed, but thanks to the younger generations ability to adapt to change - this linguistic difference it is not a problem for the understanding of the code used by the immigrants. Through our study, we discovered, however, an unwillingness or fear of the immigrants to adapt to the younger code, and adapt to the technological change. Key Words: digital native, digital immigrant, digitization, communication, interpersonal, barriers, code, encoding, decoding, context, culture

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Marc Prensky’s digital natives theory became popular, because it supplied teachers with answer as to why students were unresponsive to their curriculums. In essence, Prensky’s theory asks: what has changed? In most cases, it is not the teachers’ curriculums that have changed, so it has to be something else. Prensky points to digital technologies, because teachers are now having to teach students who never knew a world without digital technologies—Prensky, of course, asserting that this changes the way students think, which naturally transfers over to how they learn. In short, it is the students that have changed due to digital technologies. According to Prensky, students, within the digital natives generation, would value their courses more if teachers utilized digital technologies in their classroom. However, critics of the digital natives theory assert that Prensky has not considered many variables that could have an effect on how students use digital technologies, such as socio-economic factors, gender, education, and geographic location, and ultimately there is no empirical evidence to support the use of digital technologies in Prensky’s pedagogy (see Sue Bennett and Karl Maton, Chris Jones et al., Anoush Margaryan et al., and Neil Selwyn). Although, I mostly agree with the critics evaluations of the digital natives theories, I believe that there are larger economic variables, such as Gee et al.’s new capitalism, that influence how students value digital technologies as well as literacy and learning. This concept was reflected in the survey that I conducted in order to examine how students value W131 in general, the writing done in W131, and writing done in social digital technologies. The survey demonstrated that students do not understand social digital writing to be writing; therefore, utilizing digital technologies in the writing classroom, as Prensky suggest, would not be beneficial, because it would take a great deal of class time for students to come to the understanding that social digital writing is writing. More importantly, the survey indicated that students are highly career motivated, which influences how students value their courses. For students, a course’s value is determined by how applicable it is to students’ career goals. The survey results suggest that while students recognize that first-year composition (FYC) has value, they do not necessarily see it specifically valuable to their primary goals. Although I believe it is important for students to be able to find value in a course, I am not suggesting that FYC should be tailored to cater to students; on the contrary, I believe that the ideal FYC course would acknowledge the values of the field of study that it pertains to, and attempt to demonstrate to students how those values relate to their own. This is ideal—however, by using the Writing about Writing pedagogy, designed by Douglas Downs and Elizabeth Wardle, this kind of value system may be possible. Downs and Wardle’s pedagogy also has the potential to bridge the value systems of the students, and writing studies, because Downs and Wardle’s pedagogy focuses on students gaining a better understanding of writing studies as a field of study, by engaging and exploring texts that represent writing studies’ central beliefs and important works. Through texts that come out of the writing studies discipline students can gain a better understanding of concepts that come out of writing studies, as well as build a bridge between students’ values and the values of the writing studies discipline. Texts such as chapter six (“The Means of Production: Literacy and Stratification as the Twenty-First Century) of Deborah Brandt’s Literacy in American Lives, James Paul Gee’s “The New Literacy Studies and the ‘Social Turn,’” and Harvey Graff’s “The Literacy Myth at Thirty,” offers students a new perspective on the economic climate that effects the job market, as well as provide a meaningful way into writing studies. In this chapter, I will discuss Downs and Wardle’s Writing about Writing pedagogy, how I would implement their pedagogy in a FYC course, and what would be the ideal learning outcomes for this course.

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This surveys hypothesis is based on the notion that all citizens have the right to access information of the municipality they live in. The aim of the study is to examine how residents of Vilhelmina municipality take note of the current information, and also how they would proceed to access information in the future. In order to conceptualise the results these following theories were used: digital divide, digital immigrants, digital native, uses and gratification theory, social capital, communications strategies and two-way communication. The survey is conducted with four focus group interviews and one separate interview with a person working at the municipal office. The focus groups were divided into age categories in order to see the similarities and differences between the groups' media habits and preferences of future communications. The study material consists of the transcribed texts from the abovementioned interviews. The results of this research demonstrate that there is significant difference between age groups. According to the early theory of digital divide the gap in information between groups exists only due to the individual’s ability to access the Internet, which not match this study’s results. More current updates of the theory of digital divide declare that motivation may be a cause to the gap.  During the course of this research the issue of motivation emerged and a few of the interview participants stated motivation to find information as a key point. With the help of the participants requests communications strategies were presented for future communication based on the target groups' media choices. / Undersökningens utgångspunkt är att alla medborgare har rätt att ta del av information av kommunen de bor i. Studiens syfte var att undersöka hur invånare i Vilhelmina kommun tar del av information nu och hur de skulle vilja gå tillväga i framtiden. För att synliggöra och begripliggöra resultatet användes teorierna digital divide, digital immigrant, digital natives, uses and gratification theory, socialt kapital, inifrån- och utifrånstrategier samt tvåvägskommunikation. Undersökningen genomfördes med fyra fokusgruppsintervjuer samt en informantintervju med en insatt person från Vilhelmina kommuns kommunkontor. Fokusgrupperna var indelade i ålderskategorier för att kunna se likheter och skillnader mellan gruppernas medievanor och önskemål på framtida kommunikation. Studiens material bestod av de transkriberade texterna från de tidigare nämnda intervjuerna. Resultatet påvisade att det finns stora skillnader mellan åldersgrupperna, dock inte så stora gap som den tidiga teorin om digital divide, utan att skillnaderna mellan åldersgrupperna låg i vilka medier de använde som huvudkälla. Samt var skillnaderna mellan grupperna hur motiverade de var att sätta sig in i kommunal information. Med hjälp av deltagarnas önskemål samt kommunikationsstrategier gavs förslag på framtida kommunikation baserat på målgruppernas medieval.

With the proliferation of 21st century educational technologies, science teaching and learning with digitally acclimatized learners in secondary science education can be realized through an online Science-Technology-Society-Environment (STSE)-based issues approach. STSE-based programs can be interpreted as the exploration of socially-embedded initiatives in science (e.g., use of genetically modified foods) to promote the development of critical cognitive processes and to empower learners with responsible decision-making skills. This dissertation presents a case study examining the online environment of a grade 11 physics class in an all-girls’ school, and the outcomes from those online discursive opportunities with STSE materials. The limited in-class discussion opportunities are often perceived as low-quality discussions in traditional classrooms because they originate from an inadequate introduction and facilitation of socially relevant issues in science programs. Hence, this research suggests that the science curriculum should be inclusive of STSE-based issue discussions. This study also examines the nature of students’ online discourse and, their perceived benefits and challenges of learning about STSE-based issues through an online environment. Analysis of interviews, offline classroom events and online threaded discussion transcripts draws from the theoretical foundations of critical reflective thinking delineated in the Practical Inquiry (P.I.) Model. The PI model of Cognitive Presence is situated within the Community of Inquiry framework,encompassing two other core elements, Teacher Presence and Social Presence. In studying Cognitive Presence, the online STSE-based discourses were examined according to the four phases of the P.I. Model. The online discussions were measured at macro-levels to reveal patterns in student STSE-based discussions and content analysis of threaded discussions. These analyses indicated that 87% of the students participated in higher quality STSE-based discussions via an online forum as compared to in-class. The micro-level analysis revealed students to attain higher cognitive interactions with STSE issues. Sixteen percent of the students’ threaded postings were identified in the Resolution Phase 4 when the teacher intervened with a focused teaching strategy. This research provides a significant theoretical and pedagogical contribution to blended approach to STSE-based secondary science education. It presents a framework for teachers to facilitate students’ online discussions and to support learners in exploring STSE-based topics.