Towards new cultures of learning: Personal learning environments as a developmental perspective for improving higher education language courses

Abstract This article provides readers with an understanding of the concept of the personal learning environment (PLE). It suggests that PLEs can be used in two complementary ways: as a developmental lens for integrating ICT and creating new pedagogical practices and digital literacies for academic language learning, and as a context in which learners can practise and develop core skills such as digital literacies, team and knowledge work, and interactional skills – skills that are needed for success in today’s knowledge economy. The article places PLEs within the broader development related to the cultural changes brought on by the proliferation of Web 2.0 technologies – participation, teamwork and co-design – and considers PLEs in relation to digital literacies and 21st-century skills. It then reports on a research-and-development project that makes use of design-based research and creates tools and models for learner-centred technology integration on the basis of a rich set of data and experiments. The article presents theoretical as well as practical insights into implementing PLEs in higher education (HE) language centre teaching and outlines principles for implementation in formal education. It concludes by expressing the need to purposefully balance the structure provided by traditional approaches to learning against ways of organising it with the nearly unlimited resources and participatory aspects afforded by the new media.