Digital learning ecosystems

The dissemination of digital technology in the past decades has made digital media part of children's everyday life and can be used to support learning activities inside and outside schools in formal and informal situations. The design of such tools should consider learners' access to technology in these different contexts. This paper presents a Digital Learning Ecosystem Model, which similarly to nature ecosystems consists of species, populations and communities interacting with each other and with the environment. The proposed model supports the analysis of four important learning tools' aspects: authoring, collaboration, immersion and mobility. The model was applied to recently developed learning tools and pointed out their characteristics and how they can be extended.