Abstract:

In the latest years increasing pressure from businesses, the general public, government institutions, and funding organisations for higher education settings have called into question the research being done by institutions of higher education in educating twenty-first-century learners. Universities now face global competition (Hanna, 2003; Mehlenbacher, 2010).

This could be pursued through the creation of innovative learning environments even if the connections between the design and use of space in higher education, and the production of teaching and learning, and of research, are not well understood (Temple, 2008).

Communication computer/web-based technologies have the potential to involve users while also supporting educational activities. However, students must be engaged in the educational process. Communicating and connecting with peers and teachers through technologies is crucial to support the educational process, the creation of knowledge and the acquirement of skills. Students use technology to collaborate; thus, they are more prone to participate, and feel more comfortable, in a technology-driven environment (Smyth, 2011).

Politecnico di Milano has started in 2017 a reflection on innovation, with a three-year programme, to innovate different aspects of the didactic activity. Politecnico has aimed to innovate both curricular and extracurricular didactics with interventions at the infrastructural and process levels with the use of technology.

With the arrival of the health emergency, the Politecnico di Milano saw the necessity to start the second semester of the academic year 2019/2020 promoting distance learning. All the study courses of the Engineering, Architecture, and Design schools have thus started their teaching activities using new technological tools and new digital environments. The Politecnico gave teachers the freedom to rethink their teaching activities to better respond to the new challenges posed by the new virtual learning environments towards shift to remote learning.

This paper debates and compares two opposing technological learning environments (on-site and online) through reflection on the data extrapolated from two surveys. The first survey (on-site environment), concerning a physical and active learning space, was administered to a class of a course offered by the Ph.D. School of the Politecnico. The second survey (online environment) was administrated to the professors of the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano, considering the emergency caused by COVID-19 as an opportunity to examine teachers' behaviour and attitude towards technologies in distance learning.
Furthermore, the paper investigates the role of technology that can perform several key functions in the change process, including opening up new opportunities that improve teaching and learning (OECD, 2010).

Lastly, it proposes a reflection on educational technologies and on the transformation of traditional learning toward hybrid learning from the point of view of the teachers of the School of Design of the Politecnico di Milano. The aim is to reflect on the importance of technologies in learning activities, on users' approaches and on the possible future of design teaching in contexts ready to hybridize educational processes.

Keywords:

Educational Technology, Hybrid Learning Environments, Instructional Design, Innovative Learning Environment.