Managing students' expectations - or the lack of them?

A discussion was recently held at our institution on the preliminary findings of the Student Expectation Study underaken by the JISC on pre-enrolement students during the spring and summer of 2007 (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/studentexpectationsbp.aspx).
In many ways this document provides sobering thoughts about the opportunities for e-learning in particular with new tools such as Web2.0 or even Second Life.These prospective students are certainly technologically savvy using several of the Web 2.0 tools for their personal use including social networking or instant messaging, used regularly by 64 and 68% respectively. Also very popular are the downloading of videos from sites such as YouTube, and increasingly online TV, thus putting severe strain on Universities JANET traffic.62% of pre-University students claim to regularly upload videos and photos, testimony to the concept of creating UGC.On the other hand less than 20% maintain their own blog or Web-site higlighting students reservation about writing and sharing text. The concept of a Wiki is also alien to them and Second Life is only relevant to a small proportion of students (about 20%).
What does this mean in regards to using Web2.0 technologies for learning. The answer is that prospective students expect Universities to have an infrastructure in place to support high band-width internet applications and they do take these features into consideration when making a choice for their appropriate University.
However this service is seen purely for entertainment and socialisation; they are largely unable to make any connection between Web2.0 tools and their learning. In fact 79% of students can only see e-learning in a supporting role, mainly relating to access to research sources later on in their studies. This of course does question the hightech approach taken by some Universities (Coventry University's presence in SL as a case in point) at least in the short term.It will require the development of well thought-through 'exciting' applications and examples based on sound pedagogic principles in order to convince students to let the education sector intrude into their private on-line worlds.
If this fails then Universities will need to come together to develop the equivalent of the 'next-generation' VLE which will encapsulate the 'Web2.0 for Education' principle, leaving the traditional Web2.0 tools for students private activities. A mixture or EduSpaces, GoogleDocs and JORUM perhaps with a Facebook-type front-end?