Digital Natives and Virtual Learning Environment: A Case Study

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Chowdhury, Sudatta

Affiliations: Information and Knowledge Management, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. [email protected]

Abstract: Higher educational institutions have realized the importance of virtual space to cater to the information needs of digital natives. They have now extended their physical boundaries towards the design of virtual space to support teaching and learning. This paper reports study that aimed to find out as to how BA Communications (Major in Information and Media) undergraduate students at University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia use a virtual learning environment. It aims to identify the students’ perceptions of the usefulness of VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments) in relation to one of their major subjects Information Cultures. A simple open-ended questionnaire was designed and distributed among students to gather information about the features of UTS Online, a VLE used at UTS, in relation to the subject. This paper only focuses on students’ feedback on the usefulness of UTS Online with regard to the subject. UTS Online is a platform where the learning process becomes more interactive and engaging as the students and lecturer can interact constructively with each other through the digital content in a specifically designed learning environment.

Keywords: Digital libraries, virtual learning environments, online learning environments, digital natives, higher education, VLEs

DOI: 10.3233/WDL-120083

Journal: World Digital Libraries - An international journal, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 153-163, 2011