Designing Effective Digital Learning Environments: Toward Learning Analytics Design

Excerpt

The major lesson to be learned from over fifty years of research in the area of digital learning is that what happens in learning environments is quite complex and multi-faceted (Clark 1994; Ifenthaler 2010; Kozma 1994). Digital learning environments include any set of technology-based methods that can be applied to support learning and instruction (Wheeler 2012). There are many emerging opportunities for research in digital learning environments aiming to improve the student’s experience and promoting deeper engagement to achieve higher order competences and learning outcomes as well as guarantee high-quality learning design and instruction. Accordingly, research in digital learning concentrates not so much on technology as on learning and instruction as well its design by avoiding techno-deterministic solutions in favour of the developments of tools that support the students’ characteristics, learning processes, and instructional practice (Ifenthaler 2012). Accordingly, the design of learning environments offers optimal description for supporting learning processes and high engagement as well as reaching desired learning outcomes (Dalziel et al. 2016; Ge and Ifenthaler 2017). …