Shaping the future learning environments with smart elements: challenges and opportunities
Simon K. S. Cheung, Lam For Kwok, Kongkiti Phusavat, Harrison Hao Yang
Abstract
Unarguably, technology has become an irreversible force driving the transformation of teaching and learning practices. Cloud computing, learning analytics, big data, and artificial intelligence are being adopted in today's teaching and learning, though to different extents. For over a decade, educational researchers have been exploring how different innovative means could be integrated into traditional learning in order to enrich learning experience and enhance learning effectiveness. Enabled by various pedagogical and technological innovations, brand new learning environments can be created to optimize learners' ability to learn. They are collectively referred as the commonly known "smart learning environments" which can best delineate the future learning environments. Embracing a variety of concepts, including but not limited to flexible learning, personalized learning, mobile learning, adaptive learning, and blended learning, for obvious reasons, there are no one single form of smart learning environments. The concepts, and even definitions, of smart learning environments have continuously emerging.