The Changing Landscape of Digital Technologies for Learning

Digital technologies are and will continue to be changing the way we learn and teach today and in the future. This includes not only offering every learner and teacher equal access to these technologies, but it also involves completely new forms of content delivery. Additionally, digital skills must be fundamentally strengthened as a basic human skill that is urgently needed today. It is therefore essential that learners own or have easy access to the necessary digital technologies to participate fully in the digital education era. How learners concretely use them in diverse and creative ways is of particular interest not only for educators. In this regard, we sought to study the changing landscape of technology ownership and use by students for both learning and leisure. To accomplish this, we designed and conducted three surveys. After an analysis of related work, we present a comparative, quantitative analysis of the survey results from 2013 (N-1=275), 2015 (N-2=336), and 2020 (N-3=481). It investigates the evolution of ownership and use of digital technologies over the years. Then, we explore the extent to which the use of different digital technologies has changed during this period, and the purposes for which technologies are now used in enhancing and supporting student learning. We also present a qualitative evaluation of the learners' responses. The aim is to determine how digital technologies are used and how they may depend on specific learning contexts. Finally, we give some recommendations and suggestions for further research.