Undergraduate Students and Information Technology

In the recently released report from the Educause Center for Applied Research (ECAR), they found that students owned the following devices:

• 83.8% have laptops
• 62.7% have hand-held devices with Internet access
• 45.9% have desktop computers
• 13% have netbook computers
• 3.1% have e-readers

About 42% are considered "power users". Here is the breakdown of Internet-Capable Handheld Device Use among students (click to enlarge):

About 25% of students said they use e-textbooks in their courses, but it appears they use their computers or hand-held devices to access the e-texts, not dedicated e-readers. When asked what Web-based technologies students use in their courses, they said:

• Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, etc: 36.2% — for collaborative use: 53%
• Wikis (Web pages that can be created and/or edited by a group of people): 33.1% — for collaborative use: 30.7%
• Social networking sites: 29.4% — for collaborative use: 49.4%
• College opinion sites (RateMyProfessors, etc.): 27.1%
• Textbook publishers’ resource sites: 26.1% — for collaborative use: 23.2%
• Video-sharing (YouTube, etc.): 24.3% — for collaborative use: 33.4%
• Blogs: 11.6% — for collaborative use: 37.6%
• College study support (Cramster, Turnitin, etc.): 10.9%

ECAR states the the most important take-away message from their survey is that there is "no stereotypical student when it comes to technology."