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The aim of this paper is to present and analyse the Internet of Things and Technology-Supported Learning Environments, which represent current technological trends of higher education development. The method used in the paper is content analysis of available scientific literature - theoretical and empirical. It is shown how the application and integration of these technologies trigger significant socio-technological changes in the conditions in which higher education operates. The results show that the application of these technologies enables material savings, that it can result in increasing of the efficiency and effectiveness of the higher education processes and in adapting of the teaching process to the individual needs of students. The paper further discusses the challenges and risks that these technological change can bring to higher education and society as a whole. In the conclusion, it is pointed out that despite the numerous advantages that are being realized, it is necessary to develop human resource competencies and find solutions related to the ethical use of data.

The purpose of this study is examining the roles university teachers assume in the educational process in relation to the ownership structure of their faculties: private or state-owned. The research was conducted in 2014 on Serbian faculties of engineering, on the sample of 545 students and 167 teachers. The method used on data obtained from the questionnaire was descriptive analysis (frequencies and percentages). Findings suggest that the roles of teachers employed at private faculties are more compatible to the new education paradigm than the roles assumed by the teachers on state-owned faculties. Conclusion that could be derived from those findings is that teachers on private faculties are abandoning traditional and non-flexible roles, and are turning to new models of teaching which focus on a proactive, constructivist role of the student and assign to the teacher the role of a mentor, more appropriate for digital era.