“No need for schools”: Students’ views on the present and future of digital technologies for learning

This research captured the views of secondary school students in relation to their use of digital technologies for learning, both now and in the future. Four groups of students participated in the production of hand-drawn concept maps, followed by focus group discussions. The ways in which students considered the use of computers for the purposes of schooling was then analysed. The findings indicated that students presented a range of practical concerns, concepts of education, and affective orientations in relation to their use of digital technologies. These themes were underpinned by a range of technological deterministic views, indicating the agency students gave digital technologies to create and influence educational change. As an artefact, the computer was seen as something capable of transforming the ways schools function in the future, but also as something with relatively little pedagogical impact in the contemporary classroom.