Digital Technology for Knowledge, Design and Experiential Education for Culture

The learning society represents a new human condition linked to contemporary social phenomena, a society where men and women live, work, organize themselves and deal with the know-how and knowledge as a new form of capital. This vision lays the structural foundation for economics and social development: starting from Donald Schon's paradigm, "learning, reflection and change" is translated into the promotion of creativity at all levels, addressing a critical and civic awareness and inducing a process of social change. Design, considered as a whole set of disciplines in the universe of industrial design, deals with designing the value of processes, goods, environments and services, of increasing it and imparting this to society and citizens. The experiential design proposes a system of mediation between the territorial context and the cultural heritage system or the widespread heritage (memory, history, landscape) and the reference community intended as the final user. This makes it possible to have multiple forms of representation of goods and legitimizes their differentiated values, access, use and appropriation, whether directly or by using technology. Bearing this vision in mind, design does not solely restrict itself to designing the experience of use of goods (economy of experience), but introduces an innovative vision of systems and a shared vision of cultural heritage in all its forms; it also makes it possible to start upon a participatory and inclusive learning path, social well-being, which makes its diffusion in the community sustainable and cost-effective (from the institution to the cultural operator, to the different categories of users). The service economy in recent years has shown considerable potential by creating an innovative system with a social nature, based on a particular type of economic performance. Goods and services are no longer sufficient as economic products; a new need has been created: through a design process, an integrated fruition project can be created, that is to say, the project of experience, leaving an experiential impression in people, in other words, giving a sensorial and psychological form to experience. Knowledge technologies are recognized as opportunities in terms of conservation, study and communication of heritage, but also of creating culture and awareness that is expressed in the contemporary forms of sharing and dissemination. Learning, in the different seasons of life, should, therefore, be considered as the source of an increasingly innovative economy that becomes sustainable and has an impact if it reaches a substantial and diversified number of users and social subjects.