This project addresses the long-standing gap between the rhetoric and the realities of TEL. For example, it examines the disparities between the educational potential of technology in comparison to what takes place in practice. This is a tension that recurs throughout much of the research and practitioner literature on technology use within higher education.

On one hand, there is evidence for the potential of digital technology to support and sustain meaningful and effective forms of learning. Networked digital technologies have undoubtedly transformed the generation and communication of knowledge and, it follows, that this has influenced the ways in which learning takes place. The potential to ‘support’, ‘enable’, or even ‘enhance’ learning has therefore been associated with every significant development in digital technology over the past twenty years or so.

Recently, this has involved discussions over the educational benefits of podcasting; blogs and micro-blogs; social networking sites; and other forms of social media. There has been much written about the ways in which digital technology can support creative, connected and collective forms of learning and study. New technologies are widely seen to support students in the co-creation of knowledge with peers, engagement in interest-driven informal learning practices, and the personalised engagement with education on an ‘anytime, anyplace, any pace’ basis.

On the other hand, concerns remain over the less spectacular realities of digital technology use within university teaching and learning. While many commentators talk of collaborative communities of content creators, in reality many students engage with technology in far more passive, sporadic and solitary ways; both for educational and non-educational purposes. For instance, recent studies have found that university students often are ineffective in their use of the Internet and other research tools. As the recent ‘Net Generation’ study of UK universities concluded, students report varying levels of digital confidence and skills often resulting in “surprise or confusion at the array of [educational] technologies that were available.”

Similar shortfalls in engagement have been reported with many of the applications and devices presumed to be integral to the lives of current cohorts of students. As another recent study of university students’ use of social networking sites concluded, educators need to “proceed with caution when using technology-enhanced learning, to avoid over-generalising the needs of the so-called Gen Y students". This project was led by Monash University in partnership with Griffith University. It was a Strategic Priority Project funded by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.