ABSTRACT: Recent expansion of the UK Higher Education sector has sought to protect strong traditions of residential, full-time, campus-based life. However, this design-for-study is now challenged by the appropriation of distributed computing into university teaching and learning. In particular, the networking of study bedrooms has provided enthusiasm for the notion of a learning "nest". The acronym describes an institutional concept ("networked environment for student tenancy") while also suggesting the desired quality of this learning space - a personal resource environment that is convivial, secure and nurturant. We have compared the study practices of undergraduates - some living in such networked rooms and some not. Findings from student interviews, diaries and system logs will be discussed.

This paper first establishes the position that study should be understood as activity. From this perspective, institutions comprise the culture in which activity systems of teaching and learning are set. An analysis of over 2000 pictorial images from a sample of university handbooks is used to define the nature of idealised learning systems. Yet, our diary results reveal how the systems that institutions aspire to in these representations are almost mirror images of how students actually spend their time. The diary data encourage a research focus on the dominant activity of private, solitary study. In particular consideration is given to how occupying a learning nest may re-mediate the interpersonal dimension of study and may cause re-distribution of investment in campus resources.. Comparisons of time allocation reveal that "domestic" access to distributed computing leads to no overall extra investment in study. Neither are patterns of using campus resources re-configured. Neither is there any striking engagement with internet or electronic news groups. While use of local CAL packages tends to be concentrated in public computer rooms rather than private spaces. Finally, ready access to electronic mail has not facilitated more study-related peer or tutorial communication. On the other hand, it is apparent that computers have a dual character: pointing at once towards playful concerns as well as towards a curricular agenda. The dominant use of computers among "nested" students was recreational: in fact, it compared in its temporal organisation to television and video use.

The evidence suggests that institutional culture is rather resilient to the impact of accessible distributed computing. Re-mediational effects are not (at first anyway) to be found at the more macro level of how students interact with the campus learning environment. On the other hand, there may be interesting impacts to be entertained at the finer-grained level of interacting with the desktop. Continuous monitoring of individual students' PC activity over a full week reveals significant patterns of multi-tasking - including some applications (such as ICQ) that are noticeably compelling in their demands for attention. It is suggested that when computers enter the traditional student study space they do not significantly re-locate that space in the learning ecology of the campus. Rather they challenge the organisation and flow of established patterns of working within that private space. In particular, the contiguity of playful and academic resources and the strongly interactive nature of the medium creates a distinctively animated pattern of private study.