Abstract

I clarify some epistemological aspects of what learning is, conceived from the perspective of the Santiago school of cognition. This process also serves to further examine the importance of the learning medium, or context, in shaping the learning experience of users/learners, and the type and nature of such learning experience. Finally, I introduce the “heart” and “mind” metaphors of autopoietic learning systems, as a way to define the different nature of design principles informing organizational and structural aspects of autopoietic TEL systems considered as a learning tool, and considered as a leaning context.