Despite the fact that there is a range of centralized portals that can be used to build PLEs, the development and adoption of PLEs is still in its early phase. In practice, many of today’s learners are building and using their own PLEs without even knowing it. Typically, in order to learn a specific subject, a learner could use social networking platforms (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook) for networking with others, content sharing sites (e.g., Youtube, Slideshare) for resources seeking, wiki tools (e.g., MediaWiki, Wikispaces) for collaborative editing, and chatting tools (e.g., WhatsApp) for discussion.
Social media platforms have been increasingly used as tools to build PLEs in a bottomup fashion starting with personal learning goals. Next to their wide usage for social interactions, social media platforms are also increasingly used to support learning activities, especially for personal learning. The features of social media can facilitate the creation of PLEs that support personal learning. First, the openness of social media empowers learners to build and manage their own learning spaces in a bottom-up way without the intervention of system administrators. Second, other than the limited local institutional learning resources, the massive amount of user-generated content in social media platforms enables learners to personalize their learning environment by selecting and aggregating useful resources according to their personal learning goals. Third, the typical networking feature of social media platforms allows learners to easily seek for support from experts or peers when they need help. Fourth, social media platforms usually provide sharing functionality which enables learners to efficiently disseminate their PLEs or reuse the existing ones. Last but not the least, the ease of collaboration and interaction promotes collective knowledge generation and management among different learners.
During the learning process within PLEs, learners generate various types of data such as blogs, wikis, and reports. These data could be sensitive, as they reveal the learning progresses, learning outcomes, or evaluation results of learners. In a previous study that examined the use of social media in higher education [Moran et al., 2011], a major concern reported by the faculty was the privacy issue of the shared data in social media platforms. Moreover, in SRL scenarios, learners often collaborate with each other in a shared PLE where they benefit from collective knowledge construction and peer feedback. Therefore, proper control of privacy should be taken into account to make sure that the data are shared with the intended audience. Additionally, to enrich the user experience, the privacy control approach should be straightforward and easy to use. More specifically, there is a need for effective privacy mechanisms that both allow fine-grained data management and enhance user experience.
In addition, a learner’s learning traces, interaction patterns, and learning preferences form her online identity within PLEs. It is essential for learners to control and manage their identities and online presence across different tools and services that are part of their PLEs [Jeremi´c et al., 2013]. In order to provide personalized learning experiences, PLEs should be able to monitor the learning processes of learners based on their identities, and provide reflective feedback to direct learners toward a desired outcome. By viewing the recorded learning traces, learners are able to evaluate their own learning progresses and outcomes, and adjust their strategies to optimize their performances. Furthermore, the activity monitoring also provides educators with insights on the overall progress within a learning unit. It enables educators to track the appropriateness of the learning pace and helps identifying learners who need support [Florian-Gaviria et al., 2013].
As social media are going mobile, the direction of mobile PLEs is also promising. The challenge would be to support ubiquitous access to PLEs across a variety of desktop and mobile devices that rely on different standards. Research efforts are needed to study how to reuse the existing Web-based learning resources and tools in the context of mobile learning.
Florian-Gaviria, C. Glahn, and R. Fabregat. A software suite for efficient use of the European qualifications framework in online and blended courses. 2013.
Jeremi´c, J. Jovanovi´c, and D. Gaševi´c. Personal learning environments on the social semantic web. Semantic Web, 4(1):23–51, 2013.
Moran, J. Seaman, and H. Tinti-Kane. Teaching, learning, and sharing: How today’s higher education faculty use social media. Babson Survey Research Group, 2011.