The Expanded Ecology of Human Learning in the Age of AI

This study explores AI's transformative impact on human learning, proposing a broader cognitive ecology where AI serves as a cognitive collaborator. It contends that AI technologies reshape how individuals interact with and learn from their environments, facilitating spontaneous and context-sensitive learning beyond traditional educational frameworks. By leveraging theories of cognitive ecology, extended cognition, and postdigital education, this study investigates how AI fosters new, self-directed learning practices that are ecologically embedded. It asserts that learners now experience 'ecologically deepened cognition' through continuous interactions with intelligent systems integrated into everyday settings. This study underscores a paradigmatic shift in learning ecology, marked by multimodality, pervasive accessibility, and personalized scaffolding, which blurs the lines between knowing, doing, and being. This reconceptualization of learning has significant implications for lifelong learning policies, digital pedagogies, and the design of educational technologies.