Since many years we have a worldwide discussion about digital media and computer applications in
school education. This discussion is highly technology-centered or focuses on isolated educational
software systems, generic software packages, or asset-oriented learning management platforms.
None of them will be an answer for the need of pervasive contextualized learning and teaching. There
is still a gap between digital technologies and the goal of computer-supported contextualized
pedagogy. How can we fill the missing link? With the Ambient Learning Spaces (ALS) digital
environment we propose, describe, and prototyped an integrated teaching and learning platform, a
kind of didactic infrastructure, for contextualized learning discourses inside and outside school. The
result is a multimedia repository connecting different interactive learning applications using up-to-date
interaction devices like wearables, mobiles, tangibles, and other interactive multimedia frontend
systems. This digital media platform enables students mapping the world in context to diverse digital
media and provides functionalities for modeling, editing, transforming, recombining, annotating,
discussing and reflecting these media during the learning processes. The platform provides interactive
learning applications connected to wearables, mobiles, and tangibles as well as immersive and
ambient installations like multitouch walls and tables, dome theatres, AR and VR systems. This paper
describes the concept, architecture, and connectivity of the ALS learning applications. Teachers and
learners can use the different modular teaching applications of the ALS system as creation and
modeling tools as well as a substrate for discourse, search, reflection, and inspiration. ALS
installations have been used, studied and improved in schools, museums, and learning contexts like
urban, industrial or natural locations over several years for a variety of teaching and learning settings.