Joost Robben and Ida Wognum

Joost presented his working paper, with the initial results of his master’s thesis. The research came from a problem of practice, where the average age of the staff was over 50. They wanted to design a work and learning program.

He discussed the theories of Mark Krinsky (sp?) and the names of those who are now heavily users of digital media and web technology. They seems to have virtual social networks or multi-server virtual environments. Those who grew up and are growing up with these technologies and are labeled as N-gen. They designed research and asked what the actual use of digital media. Also, what is the effect of this N-gen for HRD. What are the differences between gender, educational level, and socio-economic status.

The outside door was open to let some air into the room, and the curtains were blowing and blocking my view of the presenter, Joost. He moved a chair there so he can see me, as he stated, and then I commented that it was fine, as I am doing exactly what they were talking about; I am liveblogging.

From the research population they found:

98% of respondants use MSN, which seems like an unusually high number. I wonder why so much with that IM client. Perhaps it supports the local language?

79% play (video) games — are these online or console games?

Weblogging — odd they found that 47% reads blogs, and 15% write blogs. I wonder what this number may mean, as it seems low.

They found a wide adoption of digital media and web technology, but no gender differences / none with educational tracks. Any results on socio-economic status?

Questions from the audience. One asked about the teachers, but that was not reviewed in the literature.

It seems clear that this paper presentation raised more questions than could have been answered in this short period of time that was given to this paper.

This was a very interesting paper presentation.

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