The New Learning Technologies In A Higher Education Institution As An Ecosystem

The introduction of new learning technologies is one of the major challenges facing Higher Education Institutions (HEI). The challenge is not in the technicalities of using such technologies but to the extent that these technologies may present a threat to the ongoing trends and how they may affect the welfare of the institution itself.

New learning technologies are considered as new tools to enhance efficiency and productivity of teaching and learning in HEI, since education is not only about tools but also about the integration of such tools in a wider vision of pedagogical innovations. On the other hand, while tackling the issue of “quality” the HEI tends to look at any institution as a whole and tries to maintain a high degree of homogeneity within the institution’s structure and at all its levels. While doing so, and to combine the needs of all these new tendencies in Higher Education, an institution may face obstacles due to internal discrepancies and sometimes unpredicted contradictions between the operational constraints.

The objective of this article is to show that by adopting a vision that considers any HEI as an Ecosystem, the institution can better integrate new learning technologies along with a renovated pedagogical approach that will enhance excellence and quality. The specificity of an Ecosystem is to adopt a wholistic principle that links all the institution’s components by considering them as indispensable to each other and making the communication with the external stakeholders an integral part of the sustainability of the institution.

To support this hypothesis, the article will present the concept of the Ecosystem, its role in supporting excellence in a HEI, and how it helps the institution to avoid the dangers of fragmentation between its different components. The article will then develop the operational articulations that will lead the HEI towards innovation, excellence, and a total quality management. Based on that, the article will show how the new technologies may be better integrated in HEI within this concept and will help establishing the vision mentioned above. The article will stress also how new technologies will help adopting new teaching and learning methodology enhancing competence acquisition, critical thinking, productivity, group work and efficiency. Some examples will illustrate the way HEI may use to adopt such new trends in university education.