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Specifically, two objectives were pursued: (a) exploring students’ perceptions of the usability of computers and the
Internet for school, especially in tasks requiring the processing of large quantities of information; and
(b) understanding students’ attitude towards the technology in the context of their attitude towards the form of
learning used in school, especially the absence of digital technology.
History as a venue for exploring the encounter
History, the subject on which this study focuses, is a good venue for exploring the encounter of digital children with
an information-focused agenda and its consequences. It is a compulsory subject in Israel, rich with textual
information and constantly accused of focusing on information rather than on the practices and thinking processes of
“doing history”, i.e., going “beyond information” (e.g., Loewen, 1995; Wineburg, 2001). For example, Loewen
(1995) claims that “textbooks are full of information—overly full. These books are huge” (p. 3).
Students can choose to deal with the mass of information by using the Internet instead of or in addition to books. In
fact, history can show how an agenda can be transformed even though practices have not changed. In the past,
history provided opportunities to learn how to learn as students struggled with the main learning resource—books—
thereby practising important skills such as distinguishing between the main idea and ancillary ones. Today, the use of
the Internet might absolve students of having to invest the mental effort required when working with books; this may
reinforce their impression that school learning means simply acquiring information. Students might also debate the
need for and the benefits of school, given that the information acquired in school is accessible online.
This study was preceded by preliminary research, including interviews with 10 history teachers and 20 students from
high schools that do not use computers in history classes. The interviews were with five triads of a teacher and two
of his or her students (for a total of 15 interviews), plus five other teachers and 10 other students (another 15
interviews). All the teachers taught in urban public schools with good reputations in six different Israeli cities.
Interestingly, most of the students thought history classes should remain compulsory. Nonetheless, most also found
the Internet usable for history studies even though the teachers did not encourage its use. Students explained that
“googling” is easy and comfortable, whereas books were described as exhausting and irritating even for a short
summary. The most common use of the Internet was searching for information about an event or personage in order
to write a paper or a short summary. Another common use was exchanging information as the matriculation exams
approached. All of the students were aware of the reliability issue of using Web sources exclusively. Most of them
therefore compared information from about three sites. Finally, most of the students believed that incorporating the
use of the Internet in history class was a good idea but were not sure what, besides increasing their motivation, would
be the benefit.
The teachers were ambivalent about technology as well as about their students. Some teachers described trying to
introduce the use of computers in the hope that their students would learn more and told how they were pained by
their students’ refusal to work hard. The Internet was thus experienced as a hindrance to meaningful learning because
it absolved students of having to invest cognitive effort and thereby diminished learning. In fact, some teachers
asserted that they now require that students hand in summaries and hand-written assignments because that way
something gets into their heads. Students were described, on the one hand, as being smarter than the teachers were at
their age but, on the other hand, as being unable or unwilling to do anything requiring cognitive effort beyond
memorization. Finally, most of the teachers emphasized the need for books in history as well as their personal love
for the medium. Thus, students and teachers ascribed different usability to books and the Internet as learning
resources.
Methods
Based upon the preliminary research, a three-part survey was composed and filled out by three history classes. The
survey and the participants are described below.
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