An exploration into Gen Z students’ experiences, attitudes and agency in choice of digital tools when collaborating on group work

How can we support collaboration and communication in online spaces? This project explores student experiences of ‘VoiceThread’, an interactive collaboration tool that enables users to build online presentations by adding images, documents, and videos, and other media to which other users can add comments for discussion and this activity will be given as a choice to other activities. Building on work already done through Praxis, such as the previous work on Discord, this project considers if student choice helps or hinders positive engagement and outcomes for distance learners. Implications for improved communication are explored from a student perspective.  Assumptions: We may presume that distance learner students prefer to have personal choice over the digital tools that they use, or we may presume that students prefer less choice to avoid feeling overwhelmed.