The evolving learning environments Unarguably, technology has become an irreversible force driving the transformation of teaching and learning practices. Cloud computing, learning analytics, big data, and artificial intelligence are being adopted in today's teaching and learning, though to different extents. For over a decade, educational researchers have been exploring how different innovative means could be integrated into traditional learning in order to enrich learning experience and enhance learning effectiveness. Enabled by various pedagogical and technological innovations, brand new learning environments can be created to optimize learners' ability to learn. They are collectively referred as the commonly known "smart learning environments" which can best delineate the future learning environments. Embracing a variety of concepts, including but not limited to flexible learning, personalized learning, mobile learning, adaptive learning, and blended learning, for obvious reasons, there are no one single form of smart learning environments. The concepts, and even definitions, of smart learning environments have continuously emerging. A smart learning environment can be conceptualized as a learning environment that emphasizes learning flexibility, effectiveness, efficiency, engagement, adaptivity, and reflectiveness (Spector, 2014), where both formal learning and informal learning are integrated (Gros, 2016). It is basically an adaptive system that improves learning experience based on learning traits, preferences and progress, features increased degrees of engagement, knowledge access, feedback and guidance, and uses rich-media with a seamless access to pertinent information, real-life and on-the-go mentoring with the use of technologies to continuously enhance the learning environment (Singh & Hassan, 2017). In recent years, educational researchers have been actively investigating a smart learning environment. As of March 2021, a simple search of the keyword, "smart learning environment", from Google Scholar and Scopus yields 1990 and 1773 results respectively. Over 80% of these results are published within 5 years, and almost all refer to the tertiary education settings, including higher education, further education and open education.