The 21st Century Students’ Educational Ict Preferences

Abstract

Information and communication technologies (ICT) play an important role in education, hence the increase in initiatives towards their adoption and use. Despite the increased access existing literature has evidence of limited use leading to a digital divide, an indication that something is not right. It was on this background that this study sought to investigate ICTs the 21st century students favoured. Lack of this knowledge has resulted in a gap called the second order digital divide, a mismatch between ICT access and use. This paper fills the gap in literature by documenting the ICT preferences of the 21st century students for the benefit of both the digital divide researchers and the education institutions in a dire need of realizing the returns from the technological investments. Quantitative data were collected from the final year undergraduate students from one of the state universities in Zimbabwe, a developing nation in Southern Africa. The ICTs popularly accessible ICTs in this context include the electronic learning systems facilitated by the learning management systems. The students’ underutilization of these technologies is a cause of concern that requires scholarly attention. The findings show that students prefer emerging technologies such as Google classroom instead of the LMS, YouTube video supported lectures and any other electronic content compatible and accessible from their ubiquitous mobile devices to enable content access independent of space and time and without heavy dependence on the internet.