The symposium seeks to advance an understanding of learning from an ecological perspective. The abundance of digital technologies and rapid changes in knowledge domains generate new epistemic and learning practices, drawing on heterogeneous sets of resources, actors, and forms of knowledge. Consequently, learners must navigate complex and unstructured landscapes to gather resources and structure activities. Little is known about these processes and how they can be studied and enhanced. This symposium argues for the necessity of a paradigmatic shift towards an ‘ecological understanding’ of learning, which takes into account the enactment of the learning ‘act’, the knowledge forms, contexts, relationships, digital technologies and infrastructures that shape learning practices in unbound landscapes. The four contributions in this symposium use empirical illustrations to build an argument leading towards a new learning research and design agenda. These contributions are complementary as they pinpoint practices students, teachers and institutions engage with in this unbounded landscape.