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Rose Luckin, Professor of Learner- Centred Design at the London Knowledge Lab and a visiting professor at the University of Sussex, is working on a study examining the internet's impact on pupils' critical and meta-cognitive skills. “The worrying view coming through is that students are lacking in reflective awareness,” she says. “Technology makes it easy for them to collate information, but not to analyse and understand it. Much of the evidence suggests that what is going on out there is quite superficial.”

This year, researchers at University College London reported the results of a five-year study into the “Google Generation”. When they examined the behaviour of those logging on to the websites of journals, e-books and other sources of written information, they found widespread evidence of “skimming activity”. Users viewed no more than three pages before “bouncing out”. This wasn't just the norm for students. “The same has happened to professors and lecturers. Everyone exhibits a bouncing/flicking behaviour, which sees them searching horizontally rather than vertically. Power browsing is the norm.”

Two British researchers have just completed a study of undergraduate students that found "many young students are far from being the epitomic global, connected, socially-networked technologically-fluent digital native who has little patience for passive and linear forms of learning."

Instead, the study found that students use a limited range of technologies for both formal and informal learning and that there is a "very low level of use and familiarity with collaborative knowledge creation tools such as wikis, virtual worlds, personal web publishing, and other emergent social technologies."

The study included a questionnaire survey of 160 students, followed up by in-depth interviews with 8 students and 8 staff members at both institutions. The findings show that many young students are far from being the epitomic global, connected, socially-networked technologically-fluent digital native who has little patience for passive and linear forms of learning. Students use a limited range of technologies for formal and informal learning. These are mainly established ICTs - institutional VLE, Google and Wikipedia and mobile phones. Students make limited, recreational use of social technologies such as media sharing tools and social networking. Findings point to a very low level of use and familiarity with collaborative knowledge creation tools such as wikis, virtual worlds, personal web publishing, and other emergent social technologies.