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This focus paper describes in detail the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) that was launched at Graz University of Technology in 2010. The context of Web 2.0 and how current learners are using technology is explained. The author demonstrates how browser-based widgets were used to change the appearance of multiple personal desktops, creating a "ubiquitous" personal learning environment (UPLE) that can be used in the future, similar to the appearance of apps on a smartphone device. This article describes how spaces help learners to organize their learning resources via widgets, making connections to how they operate in their natural learning environments outside of the academic realm. Based on the article, using technologies which mimic those that students already use seems important for faculty and administrators to consider when deciding how to best approach implementing personal learning environments. The author is a Doctoral student in the Social Learning, Information Technology Services at Graz University of Technology in Austria.

This video was posted by Illinois worknet to acquaint education stakeholders with some of the technological advances being developed to address the challenges currently facing higher education. The short comings of what is available today include inability to support personalized learning; lack of educators skilled in the application of technological tools; constantly changing products; adaptability, appropriateness and validity issues; cost; and meeting sate standards. Technologies are now being designed and produced, to address those shortcomings by providing opportunities for personalized and student-centered learning experiences that are engaging, meet individual student needs, convenience, learning pace, and combine both online learning and face-to-face interaction. These hybrid models are being created in the short, mid and long-term horizon. Right now students have access to countless free applications. In two to three years, the article predicts that there will be an increase of learning analytics that collect and translate large amounts of data, as well as personalize the learning environment. In four to five years, it is expected that there will be gesture based computing and the Internet of things. The Learning Registry (LR) and the Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC) are technologies being developed to provide effective learning tools that provide filters for finding, interpreting, organizing and retrieving data. While the LR is currently in use, the SLR is in its pilot phase, and was introduced to five schools in the United States. The ultimate goal of these technologies is to use learning analytics that use rich data streams to inform and create personalized learning experiences and pathways.

This article summarizes the requirements for an authentic version of a personalized learning environment, making the case that no existing system currently meets the multidimensional needs of learners. As a solution, the author proposes a new model that will meet this need, defining culture, attitude, personality, and behavior as necessary dimensions to consider in a learner-based model. The new model suggests a method to select, discover, and adapt the content considering all of the factors assessed by a "learner's profile", which looks at the relationships between these factors. This new model would be important to consider in implementing new Learning Management Systems into curriculum and working with faculty as they are using new technologies with their students. The author is a Computer Science faculty member at the University of Applied Sciences in Worms, Germany.

Jon Mott writes this article to advocate the adoption of an Open Learning Network (OLN) as a way to merge the best features of the Learning Management Systems (LMS) and the Personal Learning Environments (PLE). Even though the use of LMS is prevalent in higher education institutions, LMSs have been come under increasing criticism for being too teacher-centric, inflexible, and not fostering a communicative and sharing learning environment. Consequently many students turn to other social media and communicative tools. Educators have touted the PLE as a platform to operate alongside the LMS, in order to provide the student-centered component that is missing from the LMS. Some institutions, teachers and students have created their own PLNs to incorporate the portability, flexibility, adaptability and openness, which the LMNs do not provide. Mott however points out that the PLEs have security shortcomings, and the most provident solution is to combine the best of both platforms to create an Open Learning Network (OLN) that is flexible, can incorporate new technologies that were not in existence when LMSs became operational, and strikes a balance between the institutional goals and the essential components of the cloud by keeping private data as secure as possible, and storing the rest in the cloud. Mott provides an illustrated framework, showing how an OLN can be created successfully, and adds that Brigham Young University in Hawaii is in the process of creating one. Mott concludes that institutions and educators need not be conflicted over the dilemma of having to choose either an LMS or a PLE. The best course is to help students become digitally fluent and the OLN provides an ideal tool that rejects the "tyranny of OR" and prefers the "genius of AND". This article is most probably directed at educational communities experiencing challenges with their LMNs and seeking alternative programs.

The author of this opinion article is a professor of educational technology and distance learning at the University of Alaska. This article describes the significant implications of the new version of the internet, also known as the "semantic web" for education. Three areas the author believes will be most affected are: knowledge construction, personal learning network maintenance, and personal educational administration. This information would be most helpful to senior-level administrators in higher education who make large-scale decisions regarding their college or university's technology. Under Web 3.0, the author predicts that personal learning networks (PLNs) will be built primarily around subjects, instead of services. The author goes on to describe how personal learning agents will identify relevant information from any source that is accessible and provide information on exactly what students and faculty desire to learn. The semantic web makes it possible for the internet to become an effective and focused information resource that can be tailored for specific content area objectives.The semantic web has the potential to challenge traditional ideas about the institution providing all of the knowledge to students by itself and instead connects information between institutions. The author anticipates that at some point, institutions will describe courses and degrees semantically, to help their own internal functioning, but with the effect of making many parts of education somewhat comparable across institutions. This article encourages faculty, staff, and students to join the discussion about semantic web in order to help Web 3.0 developers shape a tool useful and connected to the higher education environment.

Interesting ideas about structuring education differently

This blog covers the content outlined in Salman Khan's book, The One World Schoolhouse. Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy (currently a free, easily accessible, and widely popular online collection of video lectures) envisions a college where students spend their time on internships instead of in classrooms and professors operate as professional mentors on real-world projects, helping to solve problems collaboratively. Students learn by pacing themselves and define their own personal learning environment. The information outlined in the blog and the topic of the book seems significant with regards to how curriculum will continue to evolve, particularly since MOOCs modeled similar to Khan Academy are predicted to have an enormous impact on higher education. From reading this blog, it points to the idea that the success of free and open online courses is difficult to ignore. This technology blog author appears to be following upcoming trends and ideas in technology and the greater impact on colleges and universities.