Abstract:

The generation of today's university students (Generation Z) is connected to the Internet and searching for information on the web is natural for them. Given the opportunities offered by information technology, it is also necessary to respond by finding new and more effective ways of teaching that not only focus on the acquisition of knowledge and skills, but are also linked to the new lifestyles and needs of today's learners The aim of the research was to verify the necessity of the full-time form of study in the acquisition of selected knowledge and skills in the text editor MS Word. The testing was conducted on a total sample of 257 first year undergraduate students. in the age range of 19 to 20 years in 2019. The research group consisted of students who had already partially encountered the tested content while studying the compulsory subject of computer science at primary and secondary school. In all groups we focused on the level of practical skills in the word processor MS Word. The individual assignments were designed to cover the basic skills a college student needs for elementary digital text formatting. We compared two groups of students, the first group had the topics that were part of the testing explained to them as part of their full-time studies, the second group had to study the topics on their own and were recommended resources to draw from - video tutorials on youtube, MS Office support. The results refuted the hypothesis that there would be between-group differences in MS Word skills test scores. The group of students who had to look up the problem for the word processing skills test scored statistically the same as the group to whom the problem was explained. Research findings confirm that Generation Z can master selected topics and skills (curriculum) without the direct work of a teacher at the required level if motivated and if social networks (school network - student/student, student/teacher) and a network of available learning resources are established.

Keywords:

Connectivism, MS Word, university students.