The Convergence Culture of the Formal and Informal Interfaces in Education

Media convergence refers to a flow of content across multiple media platforms. Contents can be both top-down corporate-driven and bottom-up prosumers-driven (Jenkins, 2007). When analysing the changes that are taking place in mainstream and in grassroots media, what results is not an apocalyptic challenge among different media; rather, one takes note of how user participation is irreversibly modifying the concept of communication and creating new scenarios of knowledge. In light of this situation, by focusing on education as well as on teaching and learning processes and considering the learners as protagonists of the educational process itself, one can begin to trace their habits and customs in regards to media consumptions and all their favourite activities in order to predict a future orientation. The authors' goal was to research how the generation of students of Bachelor of Education – future trainers and teachers – is able to use IT in formal and informal environments; more specifically, they carried out an exploratory research to understand how the leading characters of recent years, such as the New Web or social networks, are used by digital natives, in order to outline possible orientations in the employment of technology and its tools for didactic aims.