PLE = Personalization + Participation

Personal Learning Environments (PLE) can be the cornerstone of Social Media Supported Learning (SMS-Learning). PLEs are characterized by the convergence of formal and informal learning within a social context and revolve around 2 core components:

Personalization: A PLE is characterized by the freeform use of a set of lightweight services and tools that belong to and are controlled by individual learners. Rather than integrating different services into a centralized system, the idea is to provide the learner with a myriad of services and hand over control to her to select and use the services the way she deems fit.

Participation: A PLE driven approach does not only provide personal spaces, which belong to and are controlled by the user, but also requires a social context by offering means to connect with other personal spaces and networks for effective knowledge sharing and collaborative knolwedge creation.