The increased use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in schools promises up-to-date, interactive and collaborative learning content, However, this has proved difficult to fulfill as the requirements from students and teachers combined with devices in a variety of contexts are expensive to meet. Software reuse is a proven way to decrease development time, and thus promises a way to decrease these costs of ICT. This paper explores the characteristics of a software ecosystem approach to cater for the new digital school and presents a reference model for ecosystems developed for the domain of technology-enhanced learning (TEL).