Smart learning in smart cities

Commonly, the term smart learning is connected to the use of smart learning environments, with reference to the combination of software and hardware used for education and training by universities, schools, institutions and industries. In this field of application, in recent years, we have observed a never-ending succession of innovations in support of learning and instruction where instructional designers and developers run-after every new technology, to create innovative applications based on what they believe more effective, efficient, and engaging for both learners and teachers (Spector, 2014). Then, such software environments can be more or less smart, depending on the number and the quality of services offered and the capability of interacting with other systems. Another possible interpretation is to consider smart learning as learning in smart environments and, in this respect, Koper (2014) defines smart learning environments as physical places enriched with digital, context-aware and adaptive devices, which promote better and faster learning. For what concerns smart cities, we observe that they should be considered the most advanced implementations of smart environments, since they are plenty of physical devices and systems, used to provide citizens with highly effective services, to the aim of improving their quality of life. In fact, cities are smart when they fully exploit newly available smart technologies and smart solutions, which rely on most recent advancements in, e.g., big data, analytics, cloud architectures, artificial intelligence and cognitive computing. Moreover, recent modifications in both laws and policy, also driven by economics and market trends, are dramatically changing learning processes and environments in the universities so that students are regarded as customers and, consequently, the objective is enhancing their satisfaction, which can be achieved by improving the overall quality of services. Since the main task of schools and universities is education, we observe that their role in forming smart citizens, also contributing to enhance the individuals’ quality of life, is of paramount importance. In conclusion, smart learning environments and smart cities adopt the same set of technologies and pursue the same objective of empowering people, thus, a new powerful educational ecosystem has to be considered, where learning involves students and teachers, which are primarily citizens.