HOMO ZAPPIENS, LEARNING IN A DIGITAL AGE

Nowadays' students have grown up with technology as a commodity for playing, communication, information and for learning. Many of them act within virtual environments and have developed virtual identities as an extension of self (Second Life, WOW, Facebook, Plaxo, Plazes, Twitter, Dopplr etc.) Wim Veen argues that their online behavior and their virtual presence in cyber space have fostered the development of competencies that former generations could only do within a restricted realm of physical presence. For this generation, called Homo Zappiens, scarcity of reaching out, communications and resources has vanished to a large extent; Homo Zappiens lives in human and technical networks that provide new opportunities to act experiment and learn. Homo Zappiens learns within social networks where content is distributed and discontinuous. As a consequence, future learning will be based on concepts of aggregation, externalization, collective knowledge creation and immersion. How do these uses of technologies go in parallel with developments in businesses, schools and society? How do prepare companies for these upcoming changes? And how relations between governmental authorities and citizens are going to change? In times of uncertainty and change the educational sector seems to react regressively: 'back to the past'. But schools have always been part of a socio-economic system, so looking away from what is happening in the outside world is not an option. If change is the only certainty for future, how technology can help to support change? A bunch of questions to be answered during the conference.