New social media culture is extending human capacity and reshaping identity and community. The diffusion of digital creative content and the multiplication of online and mobile platforms, as well as the changeable, participatory, and rapidly re-created information generate unprecedented opportunities for the world of learning. Teachers' and learners' abilities to make informed and diversified choices for media now make up a significant part of their skills portfolio.

The opportunity offered by digital media and virtual reality leads to the development of new organic learning environments. A major challenge is how to turn these environments into instrumental knowledge.


New elements include the development of mobile, ubiquitous, and contextual computing, as well as microlearning, functional networking, and direct access to databases, with which to build up integrated knowledge bases. Within the new distribution channels, trends in the media habits of learners show significant changes.

There are quite a few related questions to answer:

• Where do new media take us as educators?
• What in the end is their suitability for education?
• For teachers and learners, what is the value of being active in new media?
• What is the validity of knowledge in Web 2.0
• How can we measure recognition and achievement?
• How do the media portray the changing open and distance-learning practice?
• How can we control the potential of media to ensure that they work for all?
• How all is this affecting the modes of knowledge organisation?

Keynote Speakers in Valencia include:

Martin Bean, Vice-Chancellor, The Open University, United Kingdom

George Siemens, Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute, Athabasca University, Canada

Andy DiPaolo, Executive Director, Stanford Center for Professional Development, Senior Associate Dean, School of Engineering Stanford University, USA

Ciaran McCormack, Creative Director, IADT: Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Ireland