ABSTRACT
“Emerging” technologies and educational practices include digital devices and applications (hardware and software), as well as pedagogical approaches and methodologies. Differentiation between “technologies” and “practices” underlines the role of the social, political, economic, and cultural context in determining “emerging” character. The processes of “collective creation of knowledge” are viable in emerging educational environments enabled by digital technologies for collaborative learning, e.g., computer supported collaborative learning. The expansive learning theory holds that human beings and their collective groups, regardless of age, are creators of new culture. This theory studies the processes that an activity system, e.g., an educational institution, develops to solve its internal contradictions by construction and application, by itself, of a new form of functioning. Open education is the result of a convergence of three factors related to emerging technologies/practices: an infrastructure favorable for webbased learning; a growing number of open educational resources available through this infrastructure; and a culture of participation and knowledge sharing that facilitates personalized learning.
