LIFELONG LEARNING AND ITS SUPPORT WITH NEW MEDIA

Lifelong learning is an essential challenge for inventing the future of our societies; it is a necessity rather than a possibility or a luxury to be considered. Lifelong learning is more than adult education or training — it is a mindset and a habit for people to acquire. It creates the challenge to understand, explore, and support new dimensions of learning such as: (1) self-directed learning, (2) learning on demand, (3) informal learning, and (4) organizational learning. Lifelong learning requires a deeper understanding of the co-evolutionary processes between fundamental human activities and their relationships with new media. It requires an integration of new theories, innovative systems, practices, and assessment. New intellectual spaces, physical spaces, organizational forms, and reward structures need to be created to make lifelong learning an important part of human life. These new spaces and structures must support individuals, groups, and organizations who will engage in and experience them as innovators and risk takers, and will use their creativity and imagination to explore alternative ways of learning.