Abstract:
One of the major challenges experienced by lecturers and teachers alike has been the
inertia of students when it comes to critically engaging with course material. One of the
assumptions here is that one of the reasons students tend to resist engaging with course
material is because it is presented to them in a format that they find boring, uninteresting
and un-interactive. Pete (2008: 01) asserts that “…by and large twenty-first century
learners belong to Generation Y – they are digital natives who use Internet for social
networking and knowledge construction”. Taking this into account, it would make sense
to begin teaching and encouraging students to engage with course material using the very
platform that they are so well versed at. As put by one of the students who took part in
the piloting of the online classroom in question when asked about the idea of an online
classroom, “I totally like it, it is the tool for this generation, everyone is always online on
Facebook, MXIT, SKYPE; the world is into the internet, we might as well study online”.
