Innovations for Life-long Education in Our Digital World

Learning begins at birth and continues throughout our lives. Increasingly, and perhaps concerningly, we learn through a digital lens. A common definition of lifelong learning is “all learning activity undertaken throughout life, with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competences within a personal, civic, social and/or employment-related perspective”. (seehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelong_learning#:~:text=for%202022%2D20….).
Covid, however, brought a digital perspective to the lifelong learning space, demonstrating the global take-up of digital communication and its efficacy across many domains: from working at home, to keeping in touch with family, to formal classroom learning, to medical and therapeutic interactions and so much more.
To date, lifelong learning has not received a great deal of attention as it relates to the communities and places we live in. This networking event will explore what it means for Lifelong Learning to take place in an increasingly digital world. What are the pros, what are the cons? At any particular stage in our lives: from early childhood, through school and higher education years, early, middle and the late stages of our lives. By using the term Lifelong Learning we offer an expanded definition of ‘education’ that extends beyond traditional modalities, one that addresses individual and community wellbeing, economic, social and environmental sustainability across the life cycle and between generations at home or in public space, in concert with the interconnectedness of the human, animal and plant world.
Our interdisciplinary Panelists will include architects and urban planners whose work encompasses the urbanist’s/ environmentalist’s thinking of sociology, environmental psychology and engineering. They will explore existing digital innovations in ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’, from early childhood through programs for older persons, and drawing on the lived experience of people in diverse locales, speculate about ways in which digital forms of learning might also promote positive change across geographies and demographics in educating for health, wellness, equity, tolerance, and deconfliction for people and the planet. They will emphasize the role of sustainable design in making equitable cities and towns where people can live, work and thrive.
Examples of existing innovations will include new post-high school training programs to create skilled workers, through an experimental university laboratory, business incubator programs, learning programs for the aging-Third Age and mentorship opportunities as well as challenges to ensure that those of all abilities can access some of these new technologies and innovative approaches. This event will demonstrate the possibility of dramatic changes in education for health, wellness and learning for all ages.