NetGeners.Net: A Free and Open Learning Space to become a ne(x)t generation learner and to get the skills you need in lifelong learning knowledge and information societies

About NetGeners.Net

Career relevance (What's in it for me?)

For whom is NetGeners.Net?

NetGeners.Net environment and spaces

NetGeners.Net - English Language only?

Contacts

About NetGeners.Net

NetGeners.Net is a Free and Open learning space for you to develop the skills you need in today's lifelong learning and knowledge societies.

You might think of NetGeners.Net as a course, just that it is Free, Open and flexible without fixed start and end date.

The NetGeners.Net learning space intends to help you to becoming a knowledgeable ne(x)t generation learner that:

• Is able to update his skills and knowledge self-dependently within a lifelong learning context
• Knows how to take full advantage of the web to support your own learning, to collaborate with others and use the tools required to do so
• Is capable to find sources at the web and to critically evaluate and analyse them
• Is aware about available free online and desktop software solutions that facilitate learning, knowledge exchange and collaboration
• Knows how to find online communities, to engage in them for personal support, and to and understands the way they function
• Has the today's required soft skills; like to communicate, collaborate and engage in discussions with others, defend your own work and thoughts and present them, know how to manage a project, or how to resolve conflicts

NetGeners.Net is supposed to be an open and participatory learning experience that involves practical ‘hands-on' sessions where your learning activities and the things you create will become a part of the NetGeners.Net learning space.

This is to say that others should be enabled to benefit from your achievements and build upon the things you started, instead of starting from scratch - just like you would benefit from what the others did!

At NetGeners.Net you will not only act as a passive learner, but become an active contributor and co-creator. You will be asked to establish your own learning projects and project teams; or to join into learning projects of others; and you also will have a voice to tell us what you think this NetGeners.Net still needs.

As a NetGeners.Net participant you can expect tutoring (support), but will not receive any official degree awarding certificate or credit points from the NetGeners.Net team. The NetGEners.Net team is there for you to provide you with guidance, to mentor your project, to discuss about problems, to participate at regular chats - and after all: to have a great time.

Career relevance (What's in it for me?)

Knowledge is becoming obsolete faster and faster and if you are a 4 years' university student for a technical degree you might see that half of what you learned during your first year will be out of date by your third year of study.

You might have to face more than 15 different jobs before you turn 40, plus the top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004 - so how will you prepare for this?

You are supposed to prepare yourself for jobs that not even exist yet, that demand the use of technologies that haven't been invented in order to solve problems that you don't know are problems yet.

                        Are you prepared for this?

Universities and formal education at large struggle to update their courses within these shorter and shorter cycles or to develop new ones, and lessons are still largely given like 100 years ago.

                        Do you really want to wait and hope they will get it right for you?

This is why you need to know how to take advantage of the web for your personal learning needs to have a competitive advantage at today's job market.

Some illustrating and brief sources for a better understanding on this can be found here.

For whom is NetGeners.Net?

NetGeners.Net is for:

• Students in formal education on a individual base
• Free learner outside of formal education on a individual base
• Educators (Teachers) that like to participate with their students at NetGeners.Net and might want to feed parts of it into their courses (and vice versa to bring in their knowledge and content at NetGeners.Net).

There is no minimum age limit, nor any minimum prior educational requirements.

NetGeners.Net environment and spaces

The main space consists of the NetGeners.Net site, but also includes a large range of further web spaces.

The web is disperse and using a broad range of environments, spaces and tools will help you to get familiar with it.

The NetGeners.Net site can be used for general information, as a space for you to present yourself, and for communication with others through e.g. chat or forums.

The NetGeners.Net site is also the space that hosts all learning projects and provides a basic overview on what those learning projects are about.

Other used web spaces might include blogs (e.g. Wordpress), online content repositories (e.g. the UNESCO's Open Training platform), spaces that allow presenting and sharing multimedia works (e.g. Slideshare or Youtube), collaborative development spaces (e.g. Wikiversity or Google Docs) and online communities (such as Jiskha, PhysicsForums and many more).

NetGeners.Net - English language only?

The overall language is English, though participants might start their own learning projects within their respective language, but would be asked to present a short summary of their learning project results in English.

Contacts

NetGeners.Net is moderated and run by Andreas Meiszner ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Research fellow at Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, UK