Abstract:

A high level of participation of young people in networks has induced us to assume that young people have high digital skills, but the literature show us that it is not like that. Not all young people have high competences in ICT, moreover, the educational institutions haven’t integrated the technologies followed by emergent pedagogies and elements like ubiquity, opening and participation in the communities.

The following research tries to include this situation, making the voice of the students the main point of focus. The main goal of this research is to analyze practices and digital spaces of participation in the network, where the technology acts as an intermediary for university student learning. Specifically, it aims to identify the profiles of participation in the network of university students. Moreover, analyze their sociocultural practices on the network and which components of these practices impact with academic activities developed at the university.

The state of the art of this research analyzes the evolution of the digital society and the interaction of the population, with new ways of communication to create knowledge and share information. Following that, it focuses on the young population and their practices on the network, questioning their knowledge on ICT. Finally we analyze in more detail the educational context to see the most important educative trends in relation to the ICT use.

The methodology used has a phenomenological approach, with the intention to understand the profile of these students that do activities on the network, as well as the tools and digital spaces that they use in different contexts. Particularly, focusing the understanding on their subjective experiences. The first method used in the research to get the information has been a survey, analyzing quantitatively the use of some digital tools by the students. On the other hand, it was used an innovative method called DEM (Day Experience Method), to let us see in more depth and qualitatively the students’ practices in the network.

The results show that the students’ integration of the technologies is not visible in all the environments nor in all the students. The participants in the research are classified in different profiles of network participation. In this way, the university and the professors have to bear in mind this diversification of skills and use of the technologies from the students when planning or creating activities or pedagogical strategies for learning and teaching process.

Keywords:

higher education, network participation, students point of view, ICT.