Abstract:

This paper presents the results of research concerning student behavior and expectations regarding the use of digital technologies, and how they can contribute to their formal education. In order to develop this investigation, we studied authors like Prensky, Bauerlein, Gardner, Thomas & Brown to compose our theoretical framework. To validate our hypothesis, we conducted interviews with a group of ninety high school students between 14 and 17 years of age, from the 10th to 12th grades in a Technical High School in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This interview aimed to identify the online environments and technological resources that were most used by this group. The quantitative data collection was carried out using an open, structured and objective interview with students from the first to third years of high school. In concluding this study, we identified some interesting student beliefs and behaviors: young teenagers who have access to digital technologies, especially those associated with the internet, consider virtual environments, where they interact and search for information, to be elements of themselves. This intense and daily relationship provides new ways of experiencing and exchanging information, creating a selective and investigative behavior strongly associated with students' immediate interests, and generally decoupled from their homework. Although it is not explicit to many students, this information represents an important part of the knowledge acquired and used by these teenagers over the course of their education and in their school activities. These digital teenagers perceive themselves as autonomous beings exercising their relationships with a high degree of commitment to the virtual communities where they spend time, demonstrating highly sociable and cooperative behavior. It is also important to highlight the importance of schools to consider implementing online activities, and preparing teachers to work with this opportunity offered by the Internet. We believe these online digital resources can be included as elements to bring these students together and stimulate them to make associations between their behavior outside of school and their formal education. We conclude from this study that, by using duly chosen and validated online information, teachers can help to motivate their students to take pleasure in studying and researching by engaging them in the demands of their formal education, thus establishing a critical and participatory learning environment.

Keywords:

Virtual classes, digital teenager’s behavior, online methodologies.