Emerging learning ecologies as a new challenge and essence for e-learning. The case of doctoral e-researchers

This chapter discusses the manifold ways in which the notion of ‘ecology’ and ‘learning ecology’ are adopted to interpret digitally-mediated educational contexts, to account for e-learning in higher education and to refer to emergent forms of networked environments and related learning practices. Moreover, the chapter provides a brief discussion on a research case focusing on the investigation of PhD students adopting social media in their doctoral journey. Exploring concepts such as ‘resilience’,‘keystone species’, and an ecological view of agency enables the researcher to better understand and design learner experiences in a changing digital landscape and subsequentely to assist learners integrate their self-organized digital practices into the academic ecosystem. Thinking of doctoral students using social Web tools for academic purposes in ecological terms helps to consider the adoption of ICTs as a component in an ecology of resources. Focus is on personal ecologies, emerging from current uses of individualized media, and on the capacity of the individual students to act upon their situated local contexts. However, there are limitations and risks in the adoption of the lens of learning ecology which the researcher should be aware of