Internet Usage in Function to Education from Students of Albanian Universities

Internet usage in function to education from students of Albanian universities

M. Sc. Stela Dhima PhD Candidate, University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania [e-mail]

Abstract

This study comes at a time where everyone talks about Information Technology (IT), smart phones, computers and lap tops, tablets, sophisticated and full of options TVs, HD and 3D TVs, digital transmitters, internet and ISPs. Yet, we don’t have much information on how those products of excellent Artificial Intelligence (AI) are used by its most active consumers, young generation.

‘Albanian schools are living in an internet era’, this seems to be the main issue nowadays when talking about education in every media. What’s the quantity and quality of time Albanian students dedicate to internet? Is internet useful to education? Do students of bachelor or master degrees profit from internet benefits to stay informed with the latest news related to research and development of the subject they are studying? Are students aware of internet resources and do they make use of them?

The present study intends to answer the above research questions and others that assess students’ internet usage in the Faculty of Social Sciences of University of Tirana and Faculty of Education of Eqerem Çabej University of Gjirokastra. A descriptive exploratory study aims to research the attitude and behavior towards internet and its services of students from these two Faculties.

150 self-reported questionnaires were randomly distributed to students in their study environments in UT and EÇUGj.

The collected data were statistically processed. The results reveal the prevalence of internet usage from students and the benefits they get from its services, which are further discussed in the study.

Key terms: information technology, internet services, education, research

How and why internet?

The last decade there has been a great expansion of technology and internet in Albanian households. According to internet world statistics[i] the number of internet users in Albania in 2010 was 1,300,000 compared to 2,500 users registered in the year 2000. The number continues to grow as in Dec 31st 2011 there were 1,441,928 internet users, which means 48.1% of the total population. 35.4% of the population has a Facebook account. As we can calculate, 74% of internet users are connected in the famous social network. Does this show the purpose of internet usage? Is social networking the only reason they use internet?

Media, and internet as a part of it, has three basic functions, to inform, educate and entertain. The World Wide Web is the function that more closely resembles traditional mass media – an information medium in which cultural material is communicated electronically to a defined audience[ii]. As for educational purpose we can profit from google books, google scholars, yahoo search engine and lots of sites containing articles, journals etc. All of these can bring at our desk most of the information we need.

ICT is what brings us to an extremely fast information exchange and communication. Let us mention here: Instant Messaging (IM), Electronic Mail (e-mail), file transfer by attachment (pictures, important documents, articles), online reading (newspapers, books, real-time news, also there’s some attempt to build online medicine and psychology not only by information spread all over but also through online counseling and treatment.

In this study we will try to explore the main functions Albanian students use internet for.

ICT and Internet used in education

Using ICT while developing a class hour can improve the communication between the teacher and the student. Distance between the two actors in class is reduced and teachers become more reliable in the eyes of students. It is obvious that nowadays the teacher is not anymore the only or the main resource of information in class. Because of ICT students have greater access to any kind of information. The teacher now mostly plays the role of a facilitator and mentor to help students access more easily all the information they need.

Teachers through ICT can create an environment where students can freely express their ideas, interact and communicate with each other’s ideas, be divided in groups, learn from the teacher also on how to use new technology. Of course this requires some special abilities from teachers. He/she needs to be familiar with the functions of the computer.[iii]

Through the years in our schools and universities, even though not always, optical and acoustic devices have been used; such as radio when teaching foreign languages; TVs displaying various movies that helped capture students attention and teachers moderate a more interesting discussion on the subject. Projectors and power point presentations replaced hand written notes on the black board and made the class hour more interactive.

With the arrival of internet, online lectures and discussions started to perform. We manage to send extracurricular materials by e-mail. Group discussions in various forums or online groups are held. This is an easy way, straight forward method, real time activity that can be performed in a large group set without the need to gather in a small classroom where not everyone gets to have the time to discuss their ideas because the class will be over in 50 minutes.

Moreover it helps students have access to an extraordinary large amount of information in a very short time, without the need to be in a certain place at a certain time. Everything comes to them in no time whenever they need to do some research on any topic. The Internet is a ‘live’ constantly ‘moving’, theoretically borderless, potentially infinite space for the production and circulation of information. The Internet might thus be described as a ‘sea of information’, containing texts which are not housed between library and bookshop walls and subject areas span across all fields of knowledge. The Internet can be used for other things besides email.[iv]

Unfortunately not all teachers and professors use these attributes of ICT and internet. Also not all students know and take use of the sources and benefits of ICT and internet for their education. To get greater benefit from these latest technologies, we need everyone to know and use it, so we can work on a network and build the education networks and make them compete with the social networks that are very popular indeed.

Method

A questionnaire was distributed to 150 university students. As we may encounter population at the respective faculties; Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Tirana and Faculty of Education at University of Gjirokastra, the sample was 92% female. Students of ages 21-24 answered questions on how they use internet at home or school. The questionnaire was handed to students at university auditoriums to be filled. Other questionnaires were sent online by e-mail, created with surveymonkey.com so they could answer online. Almost 1/3 of the total sample has answered the questionnaire online and the others answered on paper.

Albanian students’ use of Internet. Study results.

The internet is used a lot among Albanian students. 61% of the students report that they feel comfortable using the internet. All of them say that their friends use internet. So we can easily say that we are living in internet using society.

Professors encourage students to use internet for their papers. Only 9% of the respondents did not agree to the statement: “Professors encourage me to use internet”. All students use internet to read researches, studies and articles related to their study subject. All of them reported that they use internet more than the university library to make a research on a subject. This might also be because university libraries (as we have observed the two libraries of the sample) are poor in tittles and no good reading hall conditions.

The main purpose students use internet for is communication and information. 39% of them report to use it to communicate and 37% report to use it to get information. 20% make research to prepare papers for school and only 3% use it as an entertainment tool.

The most viewed sites are those search site engines and social communication sites. Respectively, 43% of students navigate through search sites like google, yahoo, msn, etc. These are the sites that are also used to link to other information or communication sites. 34% of the students mainly use internet to navigate in social network sites like facebook, twitter, etc.

This slight difference in percentages between the purpose of internet usage and the visited sites might be due to homepages set to be mostly search engine sites and/or even because some users might not shortcut their way to accessing e-mail but following the exact path from the main site (e.i. instead of entering mail.yahoo.com they may visit yahoo.com first than take the link to their mail account site).

63% of students log on internet daily. Others, 34% log on internet once a week. So it is obvious that access to internet is very frequent.

Most students access internet in the afternoon, 65% of them. This might also be due to university schedule, for classes are held during morning. Anyhow 14% of the students go online before noon. And the others, 22% go online during evening and night.

77% of the students stay logged on the internet 0-3 hours a day. Only 2% of them stay online all day long and they are in Tirana. 21% stay logged more than 3-6 hours per day.

Most students access internet from public internet cafés, 39%. Most of them are in Gjirokaster. While no student from Gjirokaster says that he/she uses internet at home. 35% of the sample, which are from Tirana, access internet from their home computer. In Gjirokaster students log on to internet even from university computers, this in Tirana is not mentioned. 8% of the respondents are using university computers. 21% of the respondents report that they access wireless internet with their laptops or mobiles in bars or public places.

When discussing about payment, most students report that they pay their own internet. 53% say they pay for their internet and the other 47% report that their parents pay for the internet. None has free internet at school or at work.

Although the heavy usage of internet nowadays, the situation has not always been the same; most students report that they have used internet only the last 3 years. 53% have used internet for 3 years or less. 34% have an experience with internet for 4-6 years. And only 12% of them have been using internet for 7 or more years. This is almost the same ratio with the population use of internet statistics mentioned above. But, this may also show that younger adolescents often don’t use internet.

Conclusions

Students in Albania, use a lot of internet. They feel comfortable while navigating in internet and they have friends that also use internet.

Students use internet more than university libraries to research for university papers and projects and they are encouraged by their professors to do so.

The main reason students use internet for is information and communication and the most viewed sited are those for searching and social networking.

Students use internet daily during the afternoon for approximately 0-3 hours. Most of them access internet from pay per use internet cafés or from home computers. And they pay themselves for the service or they have their parents to pay for it.

They have increased the amount of using internet in the last 3 years. But there are students that have been using internet also at an early age.

Bibliography

Awais; Bilal; Waqas; Usman, H M; Sehrish; 2008 Impacts of internet usage on students’ academic performance (CGPA) www.scribd.com

Barujel, Adriana Gewerc; Abalde, Nuria; Belda, Rosario; Aguilera, Jose Maria;2004Teaching with ICT: What does it mean? ”From e-mail to super web tools!”

Giles, David 2003 Media Psychology London LEA

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm#europe

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[i] (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm#europe, 2012)

[ii] (Giles, 2003)

[iii] (Barujel, Adriana Gewerc; Abalde, Nuria; Belda, Rosario; Aguilera, Jose Maria;, 2004)

[iv] (Awais; Bilal; Waqas; Usman, H M; Sehrish;, 2008)

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Bibliography: ----------------------- [i] (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm#europe, 2012) [ii] (Giles, 2003) [iii] (Barujel, Adriana Gewerc; Abalde, Nuria; Belda, Rosario; Aguilera, Jose Maria;, 2004) [iv] (Awais; Bilal; Waqas; Usman, H M; Sehrish;, 2008) -----------------------