Improving learning by motivating students to read the news using ICT

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze how reading news through ICT can motivate students to improve learning. In this study, almost 200 students in Finance and Marketing courses, participated in a three-month guided reading activity program. Motivation levels were evaluated both at the beginning and the end of the program through online surveys. In addition, traditional evaluation processes such as exams were tested to determine their effectiveness in motivating and engaging students or if using new technologies on their own were sufficient to motivate and to engage students in their learning processes.The results point to reading newspapers and ICT serving as tools to shape and enhance the learning environment. However, it is important to develop proper evaluation methods and user friendly ICT available on multiple devices in order for access barriers to be sufficiently lowered so that student will actually use them. 

Keywords: news, technology, information and communication technologies, educational innovation.