Fun Facts about Technology Use on Campus

The other day I was tipped off to a very cool infographic that presents factoids on technology use and preferences on today’s college campuses. It originated on the .

No one would doubt that today’s college students are “super-connected” and wired into learning far more than any prior generation. But how deeply are they embracing the spectrum of technology choices, from software to iPads to online classrooms?

Like me, you’ll probably be surprised at some of the stats. (Some of the data comes from “an Educase study” and some has no obvious source attribution.) Here are a few of the tidbits I found most interesting:

• Only 5% of learners would choose a lecture class that was completely online as their “preferred learning environment,” versus 36% that would prefer seminar-size classes with some online component.
• Only 43% of students agree their institution needs more technology. (I would’ve thought almost every student would want his or her school to have more technology – however much it already had.)
• Only 25% of students considered e-books to be among their most important software and applications, while 46% found content management systems (CMS) indispensible.
• Fully 81% of students list a laptop among their most important devices (and 87% own one), versus 53% owning desktop systems.
• 55% of students own a smartphone but only 33% consider it important for education.
• So far, only 8% of those surveyed owned an iPad.
• 90% of college students believe that wi-fi is as essential to their education as a classroom or computer.
• 60% of students say they wouldn’t attend a college that didn’t offer free wi-fi. (Good thing wi-fi microgaming casinos is projected to reach 99% of campuse by 2013.)
• Only 3% of students consider Facebook to be “the one website or online resource they couldn’t live without.”
• 86% of students use social networking sites, but only 58% are comfortable communicating with other students about coursework via social networking sites.
• Education faculty reported a “high” use of technology more than instructors in any other discipline.
• By a narrow margin, most felt it wasn’t appropriate to “friend” their instructors on Facebook.

Check out the graphic and let us know what you think.

Featured image courtesy of Chiratan Patnaik.

Click the graphic to enlarge.

Via: