Digital technologies and learning ecologies: challenges and opportunities

Currently, technology has become a primary factor on which the various contexts of human learning seem to depend. The ecological theory of learning considers technological factors as a particularly relevant component of learning contexts. In addition, digital technologies are driving the development of new learning opportunities that transcend temporal and geographical borders and favor systems that break the confinement of formal training structures, giving way to flexible, expanded and diverse environments that generate informal learning mechanisms. From this perspective and with a view to the construction of such contexts, it seems convenient to have a paradigmatic frame of reference of the opportunities that ICT can present. To identify this list of technological opportunities, we used the Delphi method, and several national and international experts collaborated. The analysis of results confirms the prominent role of ICT in modern learning contexts in a close relationship with the other components that comprise them. The use of ICT improves learning along a series of paths, such as, among others, the facilitation of various communication tools, access and exchange of information, their potential for creating links between people and communities, and the transformation of educational roles. In this sense, and always on the basis of the analysis of the configuration of each specific context, its elements and interrelations, a general framework of technological opportunities can be used to serve as a guide for the development of an authentic learning ecology.