New Learning Ecosystems

ELI is no longer actively pursuing this topic. This page is provided as an historical resource; it is not being updated or actively managed.

Definition and Importance

The idea of "learning ecosystems" has been emerging over the past year in international conferences and forums and could be a useful way of thinking about e-learning and higher education. In biological terms, an ecosystem is the complex of a community and its environment functioning as an ecological unit. New learners, using new technologies, are creating new learning ecosystems on campus. The mobile and connected learner interacting with a blended learning environment is changing concepts of time, place, and space for higher education-in short, the entire ecology of learning.

NLII Research and Analysis Questions

Key research and analysis questions being explored by the NLII in this topic area include:

Changing roles in a complex, dynamic web of relationships

An ecosystem is characterized by a dynamic web of relationships and interactions, and much of what we understand about any ecosystem comes from observation of the effects changes in the ecosystem have on relationships and interactions and on the roles organisms play in the ecosystem. Some of these changes are disturbances or perturbations; others are the consequence of the natural succession of any given ecosystem over time.

The NLII has argued that institutions of higher education operate within a sociotechnological context, and, as communication and knowledge technologies change, that context changes. Sometimes the implications are not straightforward. For example, because of new developments in technology, students can have more direct access to information without having to go through an intermediary. If we can immerse ourselves in a sea of information that used to be available only to specialists and experts (e.g., faculty), what role do those specialists and experts (and by extension, the institutions that sponsor them) play in learning? As Brown & Duguid note, (The Social Life of Information, Harvard Business School Press, 2000) it is simplistic thinking to assume that value (and knowledge) resides solely in content; learning science tells us that knowledge arises out of a process in which the learner engages and that this process is personal, social, situated, and active and takes place in community of learners and practitioners. Further, in today's world everyone is a learner. In addition, we live in an increasingly "designed world," and if we want the design to be responsive to our needs, we must all, to some extent, be designers too.

Some of the questions that arise from these ideas include:

• In this sea of information where we live, given the pace of change, what does learning science have to tell us about learning, cognition, and the use of technology to enable teaching and learning? (See the Learner-Centered Principles, Design & Practice key theme page for additional resources and questions.)
• Technologies have increased the pace of knowledge creation, which means that faculty must be lifelong learners too. How can technology help them be effective lifelong learners? How does the academy support them in this endeavor?
• Today's students no longer look only to faculty and, by extension, the textbooks they write as the source for authoritative information. If direct access to information does not, by itself, lead to learning, what important new roles might faculty, librarians, learning designers, instructional technologists, and other higher education professionals responsible for the support of teaching and learning play in the processes that lead to learning? How might technology enable them to be effective in these roles?
• What new roles might learners play individually and in interaction with each other in the processes that lead to learning, and how might technology enable them to be effective in these roles?
• If a new role for all of us is that of designer, what do institutions of higher education have to teach us about design that will help us in this new role?
• What do all these new roles mean to the professional lifecycle and career pathways for professionals involved in higher education?
• What might the concept of succession have to tell us about the future of the academy? Has the academy continued to develop, or are there barriers to development that have resulted in a stagnant steady state?

The co-evolutionary influence of humans and technology

Succession is the term used to describe the relatively short-term changes in any given ecosystem; when we talk about more fundamental changes in organisms, we turn to ideas arising out of theories of evolution. Cognitive scientists argue that the influence between humans and technologies runs both way- that it is a "co-evolutionary influence" (Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborgs.)

Some of the questions that are trigged by these arguments include:

• What are the new "user-sensitive technologies" that are emerging, and how might they change how we interact with each other and with the technology itself? What implications does this have for institutions of higher education generally and for teaching and learning specifically?
• How might peer-to-peer technologies enter into this equation?
• What are the likely impacts of mobile technologies on learning and how the institution functions?
• In what ways might next-generation learners differ in how they think, learn, and interact due to deeper enmeshment "in a non-biological matrix of machines, tools, props, codes, and semi-intelligent daily objects" than previous generations? What are the co-evolutionary influences likely to be?
• One form of immersive digital environments has already been popularized by the video game. In what ways does the "advanced video game [appear] to be a next-generation educational technology waiting to take its place in academe?" ( Joel Foreman, "Next Generation Educational Technology versus the Lecture," /ir/library/pdf/erm0340.pdf EDUCAUSE Review, July/August, 2003, pp. 12-22.)
• High-end networking and teaching and learning-where do they intersect and how?

The role of the academy in knowledge ecologies

John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid describe the flow and growth of knowledge through networks of practice (that is, interrelated communities of complementary practice, such as firms in similar businesses, communities of shared practice, or a community of practice of software engineers) as "knowledge ecologies" and suggest that this ecological view of knowledge highlights routes of innovation in the information age (while challenging, among other things, the "death of distance"). Healthy knowledge ecologies are characterized by reciprocity, diversity, and cooperation. Some of the questions to explore further in this area are:

• Beyond Silicon Valley, what are some examples of projects, programs, or relationships that institutions of higher education have developed that have contributed or can contribute to a knowledge ecology? What do these projects have to say about the role of the academy in society?
• What are the important new, interactive technologies that are emerging; what are some of the teaching, learning, and knowledge-management applications they might have; and how might institutions of higher education use them to support a healthy knowledge ecology?
• What do institutions of higher education have to teach learners about being healthy, effective members of a knowledge ecology (e.g, how to evaluate, interpret, share, co-create knowledge) and about how to use technology effectively for this purpose?
• How might the academy influence and be influenced by the market trend toward convergence of content management systems, course management systems, learning management systems, and knowledge management systems into integrated knowledge and learning management systems? (For additional resources and questions on this topic see the Knowledge and Learning Management Systems key theme page.)

The role of communities of practice in learning, knowledge creation, and transformation

Regardless of sociotechnological change, Brown and Duguid argue that one of the constants is that what learners need from an institution of higher education is access to authentic communities of learning, interpretation, exploration, and knowledge creation. The NLII has been exploring the implications of community-oriented software and virtual communities of practice (see Virtual Communities of Practice/Community-Oriented Software) because they harness technology to create environments in which learners-whether students, faculty, staff, or EDUCAUSE/NLII members-can construct and share knowledge when face-to-face experiences are too expensive or not possible. They can form the basis for an effective knowledge-management strategy, provide tools that encourage and facilitate collaboration, and facilitate the harvest of the knowledge the collaborations create. Finally, in the NLII's Framework for Action model, communities of practice are the milieus in which agents for change need to operate, and they provide an environment for the development and refinement of shared conceptual frameworks at the institutional, system, and professional levels; for the definition of principles; and for identification and sharing of effective practices. Some important questions related to communities of practice and community-oriented software include:

• What would a new "killer app" look like-one that creates an integrated environment for asynchronous and synchronous collaboration, communication, community, knowledge management, personal information management, and learning?
• What implications do the convergence and reorientation movements in the community-oriented software market and the knowledge markets have for the future of such an application?
• What implications does the selection and use of appropriate technology have on learning communities for students? (There is a well-established research community that addresses learning communities, but much more needs to be done on virtual learning communities.)
• What role can communities of practice play in the development and refinement of conceptual frameworks for different domains? Can communities of practice provide an environment for creating shared conceptual frameworks across related but separate domains (e.g., researchers and practitioners?
• What role can communities of practice play in the transformation of the academy?
• What role can communities of practice play in faculty, staff, and other higher education professional development and support?

NLII Projects and Activities

The purpose of the NLII efforts in this area is to:

• Encourage thoughtful reflection about the potential impacts of emerging technologies on the academy, particularly with regard to teaching and learning.
• Invite participation of all stakeholders in the exploration, design, development, and implementation of new learning infrastructures in higher education, enabled by technology, and facilitate the formation of communities of practice to carry out these activities.
• Build on NLII work in other areas, such as learner-centered principles, design and practices, and transformative assessment, as it applies to emerging technologies.
• Identify and promote basic principles that can be used to design and implement collegiate learning environments that harness the power of information technology to improve the quality of teaching and learning, contain or reduce rising costs, and provide greater access to higher education.

The NLII encourages presentations on these themes and the related themes listed below at its NLII 2004 Annual meeting and invites presenters to develop the research and analysis questions further and to identify new resources, emerging practices, and early projects that can help inform this research.

Resources and Readings

Related NLII Key Theme Pages

For more information on these and related topic areas, see the following key themes pages:

• Games, Simulations & Learning
• Knowledge and Learning Management Systems
• Learning Space Design
• Mobile Learning
• New Learners/New Roles
• New Academy
• Virtual Communities of Practice/Community-Oriented Software

Books and Other Readings

J. S. Brown and P. Duguid, The Social Life of Information, Harvard Business School Press, 1999.

J. Hoffmann, "Peer-to-Peer: The Next Hot Trend in E-Learning?" Learning Circuits, February 16, http://www.learningcircuits.org, 2002.

S. Johnson, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Cities, Brains and Software, Scribner, September 2002.

H. Rheingold, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Perseus Books, 2003. (See also, http://www.smartmobs.com, Smart Mobs weblog.)

M. C. Taylor, The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture, University of Chicago Press, October 2003.

V. Weigel, Deep Learning for a Digital Age, Jossey-Bass, 2002.

E. Wenger, R. McDermott, and W. Snyder, Cultivating Communities of Practice, Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

R. Wright, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Vintage Books, January 2001.