Inspired Learning

The Next Generation Digital Learning Environment (NGDLE)

Ebba Ossiannilsson

, Nick E. Eriksen

and Nina Rung-Hoch

Swedish Association for Distance Education, Kung Oscars väg 27, Lund, Sweden

Mentorix Moving Minds, Gammel Strandvej 161, Nivå, Denmark

Keywords: Eurekos, Inspired Learning, Learning Space, Mentorix Moving Minds, next Generation Digital Learning

Environment, NGDLE.

Abstract: With todays increased use of digitization in education and society there are needs for innovative educational

strategies for enhancing learning and teaching. In addition, there are rising demands on embracing new digital

learning and educational environments and integration of the social context, such as social interactions outside

the formal institutional settings and social media to enhance new digital educational practices. This paper

introduce the concept of next generation digital learning environment (NGDLE), and explore one inititave

named Eurekos, from Mentorix, Denmark, but now from EUREKOS, which has been tested and in practical

use for many learners and courses, especilly in the Netherlands, and Denmark. The architects behind

EUREKOS follow the successful characteristic of a Personal learning environment (PLE), i.e. learn with other

people, control of own learning resources, integrate learning from different institutions and sources, and

manage activities. Eurekos provides course building facilities, learning teams, and a social hub integrated

with social media. Eurekos can be likened to a LEGO baseplate. It integrates interoperability, personalization,

learning analytics, collaboration, and a universal design with social media and the necessary software.

1 INTRODUCTION

This paper introduces the concept of the next-

generation digital learning environment (NGDLE). It

explores Eurekos, a NGDLE that was developed by

the Mentorix Consultancy Group in Denmark.

Eurekos has been tested and implemented by many

learners and courses, especially in the Netherlands

and Denmark.

Because of the increased use of digitization in

education and society, there is a need for innovative

educational strategies that enhance learning and

teaching (Ossiannilsson, 2016). In addition, there are

increasing demands for new digital learning and

educational environments and their integration with

the social context Ossiannilsson,, Eriksen &Rung

Hogh, 2016 . Examples are social interactions

outside formal institutional settings and the use of

social media to enhance new digital educational

practices. New educational strategies for learning

and teaching must be created, which will require

designs that promote inclusion in teaching and

learning. Social media can be used as a catalyst to

support the process of inclusion. Embracing social

interactions, and what Jahnke (2015) has called cross-

action learning spaces, can promote community

building and enhance collaborative knowledge

building and sharing. Informal and formal learning

could be integrated into such collaborative processes.

The involvement of societal stakeholders could

influence the educational culture of inclusive

teaching and learning, which would improve the

quality of individual and collaborative learning

processes Ossiannnilsson, Eriksen & Rung-Hoch,

2016). Access, personalization, interactivity,

flexibility, inclusion, and taking ownership of one’s

learning environment are crucial indicators of the

quality and success of learning from the learner’s

perspective (Kear, Roswell, Williams, and

Ossiannilsson, 2016; Ossiannilsson, 2016).

2 PERSONAL LEARNING

ENVIRONMENTS AND

CONNECTIVITY

In the 21st century, collaborative learning is one of

the most important skills that students should

develop. Knowledge is no longer the property of a

Ossiannilsson, E., Eriksen, N. and Rung-Hoch, N.

Inspired Lear ning - The Next Generation Digital Learning Environment (NGDLE).

DOI: 10.5220/0006378202630267

In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2017) - Volume 2, pages 263-267

ISBN: 978-989-758-240-0

263

single person; it is a resource that expands when it is

shared. The student’s ownership of the learning

process enhances the motivation to learn. According

to Downes (2016), personalized learning takes place

when students determine their own learning

objectives. This differs from personalized learning

that is tailored by the providers and is not selected by

the learners (Downes, 2016; Ossiannilsson, 2016).

Personal learning and self-determined learning lead

to the attainment of profound knowledge. In this

approach, learners tune their learning objectives to

their educational needs, thus designing their own

learning. Today, learning has become increasingly

unbundled, and the lines between formal and informal

learning have become increasingly blurred, which has

led to the concepts of just-for-me learning and just-

in-time learning, which are conducted mainly on

mobile devices. This approach to learning will

address key issues, not only today but also in the

future.

Virtual learning environments (VLE) or learning

management systems (LMS) have been highly

successful in the administration and management of

learning but less successful in enabling learning.

Therefore, the personal learning environment (PLE),

has become increasingly used either with a VLE

and/or an LMS or as a stand-alone approach. A PLE

contains the tools, communities, and services that

constitute the individual educational platforms that

learners use to direct their own learning and pursue

their educational goals (Milligan et al., (2006). A

PLE also facilitates communication and sharing

among users. (Attwell, 2007; EDUCAUSE, 2007).

However, a NGDLE goes beyond a PLE to support

new teaching and learning methods to achieve better

results (Brown & Dehoney, 2015; Brown, 2016;

Tousignant, 2015).

3 EUREKOS, NEXT

GENERATION LEARNING

ENVIRONMENT

According to Ossiannilsson, E., Eriksen, and Rung-

Hogh, (2015) Eurekos

is more than a PLE; it is a

NGDLE that seamlessly integrates the systems and

services used by students, instructors, and society. It

should be emphasized that a NGDLE is more

concerned with education than with technology

although the latter is a key driver in educational

change (Chatti, 2010). It should also be emphasized

http://www.eurekos.com/

that the responsiveness of NGDLE allows it to be

used on smart phones and tablets to enhance personal,

flexible, and accessible mobile learning and to allow

individuals to take ownership of their own learning

(Institute of Museum and Library Services, n.d,

Ossiannilsson, 2016).

The Eurekos initiative was implemented to disrupt

the traditional development of education and to

challenge the aging structures of the myriad of LMSs.

Aa a NGDLE, Eurekos is quickly replacing the

traditional LMSs because it facilitates innovation and

integration in teaching and learning programs.

Personal learning experience is provided through the

tools, communities, and services that learners use to

self-direct their personal educational goals. Eurekos

is designed to deliver innovative education and to

support new learning strategies. In developing

Eurekos, the objective was to empower teachers and

literally to include “the world” in the personal

learning environment. The goal of this NGDLE is to

empower learning and teaching and provide the tools

needed to facilitate education that is effective in the

21st century.

Driven by the need for change the initiative was

developed to empower educators and embrace the

-century world in which learners live. The

Eurekos NGDLE was developed in a close

partnership with higher education—Hogeschool

Utrecht, Danish Technical University—and several

private-sector companies. The initiative was designed

meet the demand for innovative education, to support

new learning strategies, and to meet the changing

ways in which people work and learn online. The

objective was first to empower teachers and then the

world in a very literal sense. During the last three

years, the platform has been adapted and refined to

become a central part of blended learning in

educational programs. In one organization,

Hogeschool Utrecht 1,700 courses in all disciplines

were adapted within three years. This organization’s

ambitious goals to migrate from a traditional LMS to

“online conversion” were accomplished almost two

years ahead of schedule, which is considerable proof

of the concept. Both pedagogical and technical

developments took place in an iterative process that

allowed ample time for changes and feedback from

the organization.

Eurekos can be likened to a LEGO baseplate. It

integrates interoperability, personalization, learning

analytics, collaboration, and a universal design with

social media and the necessary software, as shown in

Figure 1.

CSEDU 2017 - 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

264

Figure 1: Eurekos as a LEGO baseplate.

The challenge is not only to pick the right pieces but

also to determine how they fit together to make a

coherent solution that connects the several services

performed by different technologies, providers, and

to be social. Eurekos was based on meeting this

challenge from its inception, which positively

affected its development. The features of Eurekos

include communities, calendars, assignments,

learning teams, study friends, course pages, and,

importantly, the course builder.

This NGDLE is designed for communication,

sharing, collaboration, and co-creating. It embraces

co-designed structures, co-creating, and collaborating

in sharing materials and resources. It is self-organized

to create, for example, teams for different kind of

projects. It shows the assignment schedules and

individual course schedules, and it provides

notifications and updates (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Eurekos for communication, sharing,

collaboration, and co-creating.

Eurekos provides innovative channels of

communication and sharing between users, which is

a key aspect in a NGDLE but has not been completely

integrated in learning environments. The NGDLE has

four key characteristics, which have been described

as the key characteristics of a personal learning

environment (PLEA) (Milligan et al., 2006):

 Learn with other people by managing and

creating relationships and forming

connections between contacts that are not

part of a formal learning network

 Control one’s learning resources, which

allows learners to structure, share, and

annotate the resources that they find or

have been given

 Integrate learning from different

institutions and sources by re-using

evidence of competency and making links

between formal and informal learning

 Manage activities by creating and

participating in activities and bringing

together people and resources

Figure 3 illustrates that Eurekos enables the

following:

 Interacting among students, instructors, and

society

 Communicating, networking and learning

through social media such as Facebook, Twitter,

and others, through which students and

instructors can involve everybody on this planet

 Creating open and private learning communities

on a safe platform that is self-maintained or

facilitated by instructors

 Integrating tools and services from across the

world into one seamless hub

Figure 3: An interface that integrates communication,

creates learning communities, and provides tools.

Eurekos is designed to be a social hub of

seamlessly integrated learning tools that enable

communication, co-creation, collaboration, and

sharing. The social hub facilitates not only the

external and internal communities and

communication throughout the learning environment

but also the integration of formal and informal

learning. This aspect is important because only a

small part of learning takes place in formal

environments. The majority of learning takes place in

Inspired Learning - The Next Generation Digital Learning Environment (NGDLE)

265

informal settings and in the workplace (Dabbagh &

Kitsantas, 2011). In learning together, students

exchange information with each other and introduce

information learned in their social experiences. The

social hub effectively funnels communication to the

point where it concerns the relevant few rather than

the irrelevant many. This social hub will promote

long-lasting network alliances that will be powerful

not only for the single student but also for the brand

value of the organization. Figure 4 illustrates the

integration of societal stakeholders in promoting the

use of social media by groups of learners

Figure 4: The Eurekos hub.

4 CONCLUSIONS

In summary, the novel features of a PLE within the

communication hub (cHub) are the following:

 Provides the default state of sociability

 Facilitates inclusiveness

o Enabling the collaboration of

classroom learning and external

stakeholders

o Sharing across system barriers

(inside-out and outside-in)

o Sharing and promoting in groups

and individuals

o Integrating multiple personal

social media accounts

 Enables interactivity with social media

 Combines internal and external

communication channels in one interface

 Facilitates interactivity through an

accessible design

 Provides a dynamic individual personal

space that integrates social media

 Allows the use of learning analytics

 Allows the use of a career ladder

 Allows the accumulation of social capital

 Enables online status across system barriers

In the communication hub (cHub), the teacher is fully

responsible. The courses are constructed at the

teacher’s discretion through the user friendly and

interactive course builder in Eurekos. The Eurekos

NGDLE by Mentorix meets all four dimensions of

quality.

The session presented at CSEDU 2017 is

designed to provide an overview of the concept of the

next-generation digital learning environment

(NGDLE), which will inspire personal education and

will promote the learner’s perspective in self-

determined learning. The architecture of the NGDLE

Eurekos will be explored, and examples will be given,

such as the following:

 Raise awareness of co-creating work in

learning teams and connecting external

stakeholders as part of the educational

process

 Apply different types of communication to

one’s educational concepts and understand

the differences

 Show how to create a course with new

interactive tools and how to incorporate

social media, external sources, topic experts,

stakeholders into the course design

 Discuss students’ interactions and how they

are integrated with the course features and

social stakeholders by using social media.

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©Eurekos

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