After the shock of the pandemic, learning ecosystems – and in particular schools, universities, and territorial learning communities – all over the world – are facing a new phase characterized by the search for and the experimentation of ways to their “new normality“. This is within a world that seeks to protect at best and incentivize the economic recovery that although relevant is still subjected to enormous risks. Among the main areas on which most of the industrialized countries and Europe are focusing on, there are: the transitions towards a green and circular economy, smart digitization of the production processes, social innovation, active citizen participation supported by technologies, and, finally, the education for all. In such a context, collaboration is emerging as an approach and an attitude of considerable relevance that stays also at the basis of the polyphonic construction of the future of learning ecosystems.
Alongside collaboration, on the technological side, it continues to rise the relevance of intelligent systems, generically collected under the label of Artificial Intelligence (AI); concurrently, on the pedagogical side, competences have become the goal of future education, also in the attempt to close the skill gap, which represents one of the greatest dangers for the transition towards smarter productive systems and societies.
Competences and AI, by the way, are also topics that intersect and influence each other and rise questions of ethical nature. Last but not least, they are likely to require an organizational and didactic revolution of the learning ecosystems, thus requiring to question the possible consequences in order to build a more adequate future. In turn, this step requires inspiration from best practices to leverage the advantage of the growth of individuals and the expectations of the communities.
What should we expect for future learning ecosystems? How “smart learning ecosystems” are changing? How such changes may be related to the achievement of “a better learning for a better world” as a contribution to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ? How will they contribute to the reduction of inequalities and, at the same time, to the empowering of each individual according to his expectations and talents?
Smart referred to learning ecosystems, in ASLERD and SLERD contexts, does not simply means “technology enhanced”. The smartness is a more complex multilayered construct related to the wellbeing of the players operating in the ecosystems and is affected by the improvement of any relevant aspects of the learning processes and ecosystem functioning, especially if connected with territorial development and social innovation.https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=slerd2022=========================================================