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Technology is integral to contemporary life; where the digital transformation to virtual information accessibility impacts instruction, it alters the skills of learning and comprehension (Gonzalez-Patino & Esteban-Guitart, 2014; Lloyd, 2010). Although librarians/media specialists provide orientation, instruction, and research methods face-to-face and electronically, they recognize that digital learning instruction is not a linear process, and digital literacy (DL) is multi-disciplinary (Belshaw, 2012). Policy and public research findings indicate that higher education must be prepared to adapt to rapid changes in digital technology (Maybee, Bruce, Lupton, & Rebmann, 2017). Digital learning undergoes frequent transformations, with new disruptive innovation and research attempts at redefinition (Palfrey, 2015). Research often overlooks junior/community colleges. We are all learners and we need to understand the digital learning challenges that incorporating DL includes in the new digital ecology (Adams Becker et al., 2017). This study provides real faculty/librarian commentaries regarding the understanding needed to develop digital learning and contemporary digital library resources. The authors investigate faculties’ and librarians’ degree of DL perceptions with instruction at junior/community colleges. Survey data analysis uses the mean of digital self-efficacy of variables collected, revealing that participants surpassed Rogers’s (2003) chasm of 20% inclusion. Findings provided data to develop the Dimensions of Digital Learning rubric, a new evaluation tool that encourages faculty DL cross-training, librarians’ digital learning collaboration, and effective digital learning spaces.

The chapter discusses pedagogical models of digital learning in the United Kingdom with a focus on online and blended learning, rolled out as a case study in one university. The chapter appraises the effectiveness of the model that implemented and foregrounded the evidence in the wider literature on models of digital learning in higher education. The chapter provides thematic analysis and methodological opportunities for the improvement of practice and presents a set of implementation implications and pitfalls to avoid for higher education institutions in Africa. Furthermore, a number of trends regarding the blending of learning and communication synchrony in digital learning have also been identified.

Technology provision and Next Generation Learning Spaces (NGLS) should respond to the active learning needs of twenty-first century learners and privilege multiple ‘pictures of learning’ and associated knowledge work. In this sense it is important for NGLS to be pedagogically agnostic – agile enough to cater for a range of pedagogical approaches within the one physical space. In this chapter, the democratising and potentially disruptive power of new digital technologies to facilitate the privileging of these multiple pictures of learning is explored, recognising the significant rise in student ownership and academic use of mobile technologies. With their escalating ubiquity and their facilitation of active knowledge work, research around considerations for the implementation of mobile digital technologies is canvassed, highlighting a range of issues to be considered. This is part of the ‘hidden work’ of technology implementation. Without this hidden work, the potential of NGLS in facilitating and privileging active learning and multiple pictures of learning is diminished and the potential for reinforcing already powerful and potentially exclusionary modes of knowledge work increases. Finally to assist in articulating the hidden work of digitally enabled NGLS, a model is proposed to help understand how ease of use and confidence impacts on student and academic knowledge work.

The study has identified the factors among students that can enable or inhibit students from using online learning platforms. Students enrolled at different levels, diversified streams and separate courses were surveyed for the investigation. The study also highlights the significant hitches faced in using or adopting e-learning.

Responses were collected from Indian students on a seven-point Likert-type scale using a structured questionnaire around the updated Technology Readiness Index's four dimensions. Adapted dimensions were evolved to identify the people's propensity to accept and reject the new technology.

The result of the survey highlights the students' positive attitude towards the e-learning approach. The diffusion of e-learning platforms occupies them with a feeling of optimism and innovativeness. However, discomfort in using the newly penetrated e-learning platforms was also found. Furthermore, no significant variances concerning the different demographics were detected.

The cross-sectional research approach was used for the investigation. However, it is evident that with the use and experience of technology, an increase in its acceptance follows. Thus, a longitudinal research approach should explore the differences between students' earlier and later involvement after experiencing the platform. A cross-country investigation is also needed to measure the technological biases among students.

With advancements in technology, the chances of diffusion of e-learning in traditional classrooms have risen. However, to encourage the student's engagement towards e-learning, the platform needs to be student and teacher-friendly. This study serves the purpose of exploring the determinants that will guide educational institutes and developers of online platforms in achieving excellence in enhancement and engagement among students.

The investigation adds to recognize the acceptance of e-learning among students by exploring its determinants using the Technology Readiness Index 2.0. The study has also explored the differences in readiness to use e-learning on differences in enrolment level, institute type and courses.

This chapter lays contextual foundations for the study and application of technology-enhanced learning design. Key drivers for the integration of technology into learning are identified, including the intrinsic desire to improve learning outcomes, the development of student digital learning skills, curriculum and syllabus specifications, professional requirements, providing greater access to learning, and catering to student dispositions. The need for a critical approach is established, for instance, by avoiding misconceptions such as ‘digital natives’ and ‘technological determinism.’ A ‘scholarship of teaching’ perspective that uses research evidence as a basis for technology-enhanced learning design is selected as the means for further inquiry.

This chapter explores the circumstances in the global south that have been reshaping teaching and learning practices, with particular focus on the African context. Anchored on a literature review strategy, the chapter explores some of the key pressure points in the higher education context that have been the trigger of reforms in the core practice of teaching and learning in recent years. In particular, the chapter discusses the neoliberalism crisis associated with the coronavirus pandemic in higher education, drawing attention to the inequalities that it ignited: not all students were affected in the same way; not all universities or colleges were affected in the same way; and not all students had the learning technologies required to carry on their education in the same way. Alongside the COVID-19 concerns, the chapter reflects on other pressure points for change including developments in digital technologies and the internet and changing students and changing higher education markets in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that these forces are among a wave of influences that higher education institutions across the African continent cannot ignore. They form a blend of neoliberal reforms that are pressurising academics to change pedagogical models and threatening certain core values of a university: academic freedom, autonomy, and truth. The chapter develops the argument that although multiple pressures – arising from the pervasive influences of technology and the COVID-19 pandemic – are mounting on the higher education sector to reform its pedagogical practices, it should not be at the expense of perpetuating injustices, particularly among students.

The purpose of this paper is to explore teachers’ use of digital learning tools for teaching in higher education. Moreover, it investigates how the use of digital tools affects educational practices and how teachers experience the culture of sharing among colleagues and within the organisation.

A qualitative methodology was chosen, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers at a higher education institution in Norway. The study uses the TPACK-framework, which illustrates the relationship between technology, professional content knowledge and pedagogical approaches as its theoretical foundation.

The findings conclude that teachers are concerned with the convergence of how technology and digital learning tools can support educational processes by engaging and involving the students. The findings further indicate that they are committed to using digital tools to motivate, engage and facilitate student-based education, which in turn leads to more reflection on teachers’ own teaching practices. Based on the theory of Professional Learning Communities, the respondents agree that sharing is a basic prerequisite for a learning organisation. They experience, however, that sharing between colleagues is easier in formal forums than at informal settings.

The rapid development of technology suggests that many sectors including the education sector must adapt to the new changes in their teaching practices. Nevertheless, many teachers merely use the basic form of digital learning tools to distribute the teaching materials, as such tools are less utilised to support students’ learning process (Fossland, 2015). The research indicates that digital learning tools have positive effect on teaching practices and that they can function as tools to improve the teachers’ own teaching practices. Positive teaching practices should also be shared in a learning organisation to improve teaching practices on an organisational level. Hence, sharing at a professional level can impact learning and the organisational culture in academic institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to seek answers to questions on how equity of information literacy and learning outcomes have evolved with the ongoing advances in technologies in teaching and learning across schools. The authors’ report on a five-year long bring your own device (BYOD) journey of one school, which was one of the earliest adopters of one-to-one learning devices in New Zealand.

Using a socio-cultural ecological lens for analysis, a longitudinal study has investigated aspects of how digital/information literacy, computer self-efficacy, and nature of technology usage are transforming school and classroom curriculum practices.

Findings of this study reveal a significant shift in social and academic boundaries between formal and informal learning spaces. One-to-one learning devices provide the link between school and home, as students take more ownership of their learning, and teachers become facilitators. Curricula changes and proper technological support systems introduced in the school structures have given agency to students resulting in greater acceptance of the BYOD policy and extensions to learning beyond formal classroom spaces. Digital divide amongst learners has evolved beyond equity in access and equity in capabilities to become more inclusive, thereby paving the way for equity in learning outcomes.

This study has been conducted in a school which is located in a relatively high socio-economic region. To achieve a more holistic view, there is a need for further studies to be conducted in schools from low socio-economic communities.

This paper adds to the existing literature by sharing teacher reflections on their use of innovative pedagogies to bring changes to classroom curricular practice.

The digitalization of society results in challenges and opportunities for learning and education. This paper describes exemplary transformations from current to future practices. It illustrates multi-dimensional aspects of learning which complement and transcend current frameworks of learning focused on schools. While digital technologies are necessary for these transformations, they are not sufficient. The paper briefly illustrates the applicability of the conceptual framework to the COVID-19 pandemic. It concludes that design opportunities and design trade-offs in relation to digital technologies and learning should be explored by envisioning the cultural transformation that are desirable for making learning a part of life.

This paper is based on the work conducted at the symposium “Rethinking and Reinventing Learning, Education, and Collaboration in the Digital Age—From Creating Technologies to Transforming Cultures” that took place in Engeltofta outside of Gävle, Sweden in September 2019. The symposium invited scholars in collaborative analysis of design opportunities and design trade-offs in relation to digital technologies and learning and explored design strategies for systematically and proactively increasing digital technology's contributions to learning and collaborating. The paper first provides a condensed introduction of a conceptual framework summarizing current practices, their problems and promising alternatives. Multi-dimensional aspects of learning and lifelong learning will be briefly described as promising future alternatives to school learning. Examples of transformative practices are supporting the major argument of the paper that creating new technologies is an important prerequisite to address the fundamental challenge of transforming cultures. The unanticipated but fundamental event of the occurrence of COVID-19 will be briefly described to provide further evidence for the need and the applicability of our conceptual framework for rethinking and reinventing learning, education and collaboration in the digital age.

The paper provides a condensed introduction of a conceptual framework summarizing current practices, their problems and promising alternatives. The framework includes multi-dimensional aspects of learning and lifelong learning as a promising future alternative to a focus on school learning.

This paper describes exemplary transformations from current to future practices. It illustrates multi-dimensional aspects of learning which complement and transcend current frameworks of learning focused on schools.

Social media, network capabilities, and digital communication technologies are changing the nature of work for individuals in WIL programs; further challenging the connections between industries and universities in their efforts to ensure individuals are work ready. However, digital technologies have provided new resources to help individuals socialize into the workplace and develop new skills for meeting the challenges of the information age that will also impact on how they get a job, and then do that job. The current literature on WIL, organizational behavior, and remote working, provides a theoretical framework for identifying the key points on the transitions experienced by individuals through WIL using the prism of social media, digital technologies, and the changes in work culture through remote working. Key issues in relation to transition are illustrated using two examples: one French and the other Canadian. The French study examines the effects of social media and digital technologies on individuals in WIL programs in relation to developing work readiness skills and communicating with supervisors and coworkers. The Canadian example examines the challenges internship students face when their workplace is predicated on remote working. The impact of social media, digital and communication technologies present new challenges for fulfilling the objectives of WIL programs and ensuring students are ready for work now and in the future.