Always Online: Using Mobile Technology and Social Media at Home and at School by Modern Teenagers

Abstract

Abstract. Students of Moscow schools and other educational institutions between the ages of 16 and 18 years old were surveyed to assess how Russian schools use modern methods of e-learning, mobile technologies, and social media in the learning process. The sample covered 3,194 respondents. The study describes three waves of Russian school informatization and the challenges the system has been facing over the last five years: the extensive use of mobile phones and PDAs with high-speed access to the Internet by students and the active use of social media services for communication, search, and the storage of information. The article demonstrates the obvious progress of the schooling system: present-day teachers communicate with their students via email and social networks and occasionally give homework assignments to be done online or using Internet services. Yet, the school remains an extremely conservative institution. The education system is insensitive to the rapid development of technologies, and the process of modernization is essentially inhibited by sticking to conventional teaching practices and ignoring innovative ones. Keywords: school, innovation in education, social media, teenagers, e-learning, informatization of education, ICT, digital technologies. DOI: 10.17323/1814-9545-2016-1-205-224The article was prepared using the data of a panel longitudinal study entitled "Trajectories in Education and Career" as part of Research Project No. 14-06-00735 supported by the Russian Foundation for Humanities and cofunded by the HSE Academic Fund. Received in August 2015According to an OECD report, Russia is ranked 5th among 29 countries in the overall level of innovation in school education [OECD, 2014]. The list of nine innovations in Russian school education includes, among other things, encouraging a more active use of computers as a source of information in the learning process and providing access to the Internet in class. The OECD data does not reflect the existing situation; instead, it focuses on the progress the education system made in 1999-2011. This suggests that the government's programs for computerizing and later informatizing school education, which were launched in the mid-1980s, have achieved their goals at least in part. Meanwhile, computer and Internet services have made much progress over the last five years. Education has been witnessing such trends as using PDAs, mobile apps, social media, and other types of e-learning. The efficiency of using these innovative practic-

What’s in My Profile: VKontakte Data as a Tool for Studying the Interests of Modern Teenagers

“…Social media has become a natural habitat for modern adolescents, who use mobile devices all the time [Koroleva 2016a]. When a school student creates a profile, they add friends, post content, join communities, etc.…”

“…Vkontakte (VK) seems to be largely prioritized among school students: 86% of the respondents reported having their primary social media accounts on this website [Koroleva 2016a]. The Vkontakte newsfeed is made up of the content posted by the user's friends and Vkontakte communities the communities that he/she follows.…”

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“…We believe that the investigation of adolescent online behavior can be a step in the right direction towards the development of such methods. Social media has become a natural habitat for modern adolescents, who use mobile devices all the time [Koroleva 2016a]. When a school student creates a profile, they add friends, post content, join communities, etc.…”

“…Checking their inbox and scrolling through newsfeeds on social media regularly have become an everyday ritual for adolescents [Koroleva 2016b]. Vkontakte (VK) seems to be largely prioritized among school students: 86% of the respondents reported having their primary social media accounts on this website [Koroleva 2016a]. The Vkontakte newsfeed is made up of the content posted by the user's friends and…”

Are We Online or in Class? Students’ Smartphone Usage Habits

“…In support of this view, a study investigated students' use of mobile devices (tablet PCs, Laptops and smartphones) and it found that students generally used smartphones in classes (Robert & Rees, 2014). Supporting educational innovations, technologies, developments and policies such as "Bring your Own Device" (BYOD) (Joyce-Gibbons et al, 2018;Koroleva, 2016) and on the other hand taking precautions against students' use of such devices can seem to be conflicting. This contradiction can also be seen in the literature.…”