IT IS not unusual to find that students are more knowledgeable about the Internet than their teachers. While schools have made a big push to use information technology (IT) in education, it seems teacher training and technical support have yet to catch up.
A recent survey in the United States found that Internet-savvy teenagers went online constantly to keep up with school work, but they did not think most of their teachers appreciated the power of the medium. For the study, researchers surveyed 136 middle and high school students in three metropolitan areas.
In Hong Kong, the situation is similar. Although the authorities are trying to provide more computers at school, the use of IT for educational purposes is still not widespread.
The most popular online activities for students are for entertainment - using ICQ, visiting chat rooms, playing online games and downloading music. However, they also use the Internet to do research, find online tutorials and career guidance, and even design their own Web pages - their IT skills being mostly self-taught.
'It is not that we don't use it in our studies, but our teachers don't ask us to hand in homework through the Internet,' said Aubrey Siu, 19, a Form Seven student. 'We do data research for projects, but you don't have projects all year round.'
The picture is different for local university students. Ringo Choi Nam-hin, a second year student at the Polytechnic University, said that their use of the Internet was a lot wider. Apart from projects, they hand in their assignments as well as take tests on the Internet. Sometimes he spends more than 12 hours on the Net a day.
