Hi-tech carrots to tempt generation C

TECHNOLOGY researchers warn that universities need to become more interactive and embrace mobile phones, blogs and MySpace if they want to keep the latest technology-savvy generation of students interested. They have dubbed these students generation C because they create rather than just consume information.

TECHNOLOGY researchers warn that universities need to become more interactive and embrace mobile phones, blogs and MySpace if they want to keep the latest technology-savvy generation of students interested. They have dubbed these students generation C because they create rather than just consume information.

"Across the board there seems to be a drop in attendance in large lecture spaces," said Jude Smith of Queensland University of Technology's creative industries faculty.

Ms Smith said students were increasingly becoming "produsers". "People are creating content and other people are commenting on it rather than commercial companies creating content," she said. "There is potential for us to take advantage of that in the tertiary education environment."

Ms Smith said universities needed to have a serious rethink to try to keep the latest generation of students interested.

"Tapping into mobile and wireless technologies increases student interest so they can engage in the learning environment any time," she said.

Ms Smith and colleague Axel Bruns presented a research paper at a Mobile Media conference held at the University of Sydney, arguing that traditional tertiary learning is under threat from generation C.

Dr Bruns said several factors contributed to the decline in lecture attendance, including greater work commitments as well as diminishing interest.

He said the traditional lecturing style ran contrary to the online experiences of generation C students.

"These students are actively creating and reusing content," he said.

"But (in lectures) they are forced in this unnatural position of just sitting and listening."

The call comes amid the development of new lecture theatres that encourage collaboration and interaction.

Architect Hamilton Wilson has teamed up with the University of Queensland to look at what lecture spaces of the future should be like and the connection they will have to teaching and technology.

Mr Wilson said teaching was evolving from knowledge-based to understanding-based, where students collaborated and interacted more with material than just reading books and writing essays. "New technologies have forced this hand," he said about the change in teaching practices.

"But this active learning is abetter way to teach in the firstplace."

Mr Wilson said some "new generation" lecture theatres included spaces that had switchable walls and screens.

"It starts a lecture in instructive mode and it can switch into collaboration mode where it feels like a series of group rooms," he said.

Mr Wilson said the rooms had built-in document cameras so all students could view notes and screens on every table and were able to tap into online resources.

"So the lecturer can, at any time, show the other students what the groups have been doing and incorporate that into the lecture," he said.