From VLE to Learning Ecosystems: Exploring a Conceptual Model

Abstract

Technologies have transformed many things in our daily lives, from simple activities, like purchasing goods, to complex tasks, like learning. As a result of the immersion in digital culture, there is a tendency in our society to move towards a digital school, where learners will be able to benefit from someone else's learning, in and out of brick and mortar schools, aided by computers. With so many different ways of virtual interaction, ideas arise but are lost in the flood of information available on existing networks. However, individuals who interact within this environment or with others individuals, are often oblivious to being in a learning ecosystem. We are living a technological age from the perspective of a digital culture, in view of this, a learning ecosystem in digital culture can be defined as the union of agents humans or synthetics, with environment in which cognition occurs through the interactions. This article presents a conceptual metamodel from which we can define formal learning ecosystem models. In addition, we also present an instance of the metamodel in the form of an ubiquitous software architecture. The general idea is to get individuals freed from the limits imposed by the traditional Virtual Learning Environments.