Personal Learning Environments: Concept or Technology?

Abstract

This paper reviews and critiques how the notion of PLEs has been conceptualised and discussed in literature so far. It interprets the variability of its interpretations and conceptualisations as the expression of a fundamental contradiction between patterns of activity and digital instrumentation in formal education on one hand, and individual experimentation and experience within the digital realm on the other. It is suggested to place this contradiction in the larger socio-historic context of an ongoing media transformation. Thus, the paper argues against the prevalent tendency to base the conceptualisation of PLEs almost exclusively on Web 2.0 technologies that are currently available or emerging, while underlying patterns of control and responsibility often remain untouched. Instead, it proposes to scrutinise these patterns and to focus educational efforts on supporting adult learners to model their learning activities and potential personal learning environments while exploring the digital realm.

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Keywords: Adult Learners, Digital Transformation, Educational Intervention, Personal Learning
Environments(PLEs),(Re-)InstrumentationofLearningActivities
INTRODUCTION
It seems fair to say that in recent years the notion
of “Personal Learning Environments” (PLEs)
emerged mainly as a sort of counter-concept
to the centralised provision of institutionally
owned and controlled landscapes of tools and
services in formal education. Fundamentally,
it allowed its proponents to address and ques-
tion the severe limitations of the mainstream
approach to the mediation of teaching and
Personal Learning
Environments:
Concept or Technology?
SebastianH.D.Fiedler,CentreforSocialInnovation,AustriaandUniversityofTurku,
Finland
TerjeVäljataga,TallinnUniversity,Estonia
ABSTRACT
ThispaperreviewsandcritiqueshowthenotionofPLEshasbeenconceptualisedanddiscussedinliterature
sofar.Itinterpretsthevariabilityofitsinterpretationsandconceptualisationsastheexpressionofafunda-
mentalcontradictionbetweenpatternsofactivityanddigitalinstrumentationinformaleducationononehand,
andindividualexperimentationandexperiencewithinthedigitalrealmontheother.Itissuggestedtoplace
thiscontradictioninthelargersocio-historiccontextofanongoingmediatransformation.Thus,thepaper
arguesagainsttheprevalenttendencytobasetheconceptualisationofPLEsalmostexclusivelyonWeb2.0
technologiesthatarecurrentlyavailableoremerging,whileunderlyingpatternsofcontrolandresponsibility
oftenremainuntouched.Instead,itproposestoscrutinisethesepatternsandtofocuseducationaleffortson
supportingadultlearnerstomodeltheirlearningactivitiesandpotential(personallearning)environments
whileexploringthedigitalrealm.
studying activities with digital technologies.
The emergence and growing dissemination of
loosely-coupled, networked tools and services
and their surrounding practices in particular
inspired some scholars to speculate about a
transformation of the monolithic, centralised
systems that dominated and are still dominating
formal education. Downes (2005), for example
wrote: “The e-learning application, therefore,
begins to look very much like a blogging tool.
It represents one node in a web of content,
connected to other nodes and content creation
services used by other students. It becomes …
a personal learning center, where content is
DOI: 10.4018/jvple.2011100101

2 International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments, 2(4), 1-11, October-December 2011
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reused and remixed according to the student’s
own needs and interests. It becomes, indeed, not
a single application, but a collection of inter-
operating applications - an environment rather
than a system” (section on “E-Learning 2.0).
Looking back two years later Downes
(2007) reflected that “through 2005 and 2006,
the concept of the Personal Learning Environ-
ment (PLE) slowly began to take form in the
educational technology community, coalesc-
ing with a ‘Future VLE’ diagram released by
CETIS’s Scott Wilson” (p. 19).
Indeed, retrospectively it appears that the
visual representation of Wilson’s Future Virtual
Learning Environment (VLE) (Wilson, 2005)
served as a sort of anchor for the discourse on
Personal Learning Environments for quite some
time. According to Severance et al. (2008) the
CETIS (Centre for Educational Technology
& Interoperability Standards) group however,
traces some of the ideas that drove the early
stage of this discourse to an unpublished paper
by Oliver and Liber (2001).
Be that as it may, Johnson et al. (2006)
suggested that over the years the discourse
gradually developed around a number of foci
that can be interpreted as an expression of a
desire for:
• Greater personal ownership of technology
and data
• More effective ways of managing techno-
logical tools and services
• The integration of technologically medi-
ated activities across all aspects of life
• A removal of barriers to the use and com-
bination of tools and services
• Mediated collaboration and co-creation
We will argue later in this paper that
these “desires” actually occur in a specific
socio-historic context and that they can also be
read as an expression of a rising contradiction
experienced in various activity systems and in
formal education in particular.
A WIDE RANGE OF
INTERPRETATIONS AND
CONCEPTUALISATIONS
There are clear signs that over the years a wide
range of conceptualisations and interpreta-
tions have surfaced in the ongoing debates
and exchanges. Attwell (2007b), for example,
reported his experience at a conference in the
following terms: “there was no consensus on
what a Personal Learning Environment (PLE)
might be. The only thing most people seemed
to agree on was that it was not a software
application. Instead it was more of a new ap-
proach to using technologies for learning” (p.
1). Even this minimal consensus appears to be
rather questionable after a thorough literature
review on the topic. Kolas and Staupe (2007)
also contested that “the variety of interpretation
illustrates how diffuse the PLE concept still is”
(p. 750). Johnson and Liber (2008) only recently
asserted that “within this label, however, a
number of practices and descriptions have
emerged - not all of which are compatible, and
discussions have raged as to the interpretation
of the terms” (p. 3). This doesn’t sound much
different from what Johnson et al. (2006) had
concluded already two years earlier: “This is a
title that embraces a variety of different interpre-
tations, and this essential ambiguity is reflected
in the discourse that has emerged around it …
That such a variety of interpretation can emerge
around the same terminology is indicative of
a lack of clarity defining exactly what a PLE
is” (p. 182). There is very little indication that
this state of affairs has substantially improved
or is currently improving.
PERSONAL LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS AS A
CONCEPT OR APPROACH
Some authors clearly suggest treating the no-
tion of Personal Learning Environments as
a concept or approach. Attwell (2007a), for

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example, states explicitly that “it is critical that
PLEs are being seen as not just a new applica-
tion of educational technology, but rather as a
concept. The development of Personal Learning
Environments represents a significant shift in
pedagogic approaches to how we support learn-
ing processes” (p. 59).
Downes (2007) seems to express a similar
view when he writes: “The PLE is a recognition
that the ‘one size fits all’ approach characteristic
of the LMS (Learning Management System)
will not be sufficient to meet the varied needs
of students. It is, indeed not a software applica-
tion per se, but is rather a characterisation of an
approach to e-learning” (p. 20). He adds that
“the key to understanding the PLE consists not
in understanding a particular type of technology
so much as in understanding the thinking that
underlies the concept” (p. 20).
Johnson et al. (2006) also seemed to have
a rather conceptual perspective in mind: “When
examining current technologies, the PLE ‘lens’
affords us two key actions, ... it allows us to
critique current technologies, situating them in
terms of what might be characterised as their
‘PLE compliance’. Secondly, it generates a
‘migration path’ to move a current technology
from a position of partial PLE-ness to full
compliance” (p. 187).
Johnson and Liber (2008) on the other hand
got a lot more specific when they suggested that
“the Personal Learning Environment (PLE)
concept has emerged within the UK and abroad
as a label associated with the application of the
technologies of web 2.0 and Service Oriented
Architecture to education” (p. 3). This particular
view seems to be largely shared by Kerres (2007)
who claimed that “for the user, this “personal
learning environment” is not a separate space
on the internet, it is an essential part of the us-
ers’ workspace. It should be highly integrated
with the user’s framework of tools for his/her
personal use of the internet” (p. 11). How this
should be achieved remains rather obscure and
Kerres seems to prefer a traditional distribution
of roles. He envisions that “an instructional
designer would arrange some of the materials
and tools the learner will work on, but would
also arrange the environment to be open to the
vast sources and tools the internet provide, thus,
providing a soft transition between the learn-
ing environment and the “other” internet” (p.
11). Nevertheless, he expects that “the learners
themselves are gaining competencies to con-
struct their personal environments where they
select and sequence contents available on the
internet” (p. 11).
Wilson et al. (2006) talked about a design
pattern: “The critical design flaws inherent
in today’s learning systems can be addressed
through adopting a new design pattern that
shifts emphasis away from the isolated experi-
ence of the modular VLE. We characterize this
new pattern a Personal Learning Environment,
although unlike the VLE this is primarily a
pattern concerned with the practices of users
in learning with diverse technologies, rather
than a category of software” (p. 4). Their vision
leaves room for a broader (re-)instrumentation
as it is evident in the following quote: “While
we have discussed the PLE design as if it were
a category of technology … in fact we envisage
situations where the PLE is not a single piece
of software, but instead the collection of tools
used by a user to meet their needs as part of
their personal working and learning routine.
So, the characteristics of the PLE design may
be achieved using a combination of existing
devices (laptops, mobile phones, portable media
devices), applications (newsreaders, instant
messaging clients, browsers, calendars) and
services (social bookmarkservices, weblogs,
wikis)” (p. 9).
PERSONAL LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS AS
TECHNOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
OR TOOL COLLECTIONS
Some authors like van Harmelen (2006) were
even more explicit and suggested that “as such,
a PLE is a single user’s e-learning system
that provides access to a variety of learning
resources, and that may provide access to
learners and teachers who use other PLEs and/

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or VLEs” (p. 815). This technological view
is shared by Kolas and Staupe (2007) who
state that “in order to meet the requirements
of a PLE, a powerful computer architecture
is needed, where it is easy to locate resources
based on context and needs. There should also
be a powerful search- and navigation system
connected to the architecture. The architecture
must ensure relevant, complete and consistent
information” (p. 751).
Dron and Bhattacharya (2007) offered
a rather tautological definition: “PLEs are a
collection of interoperating applications that
together form an individual’s learning environ-
ment”, while Milligan et al. (2006) seemed to
envision a particular set of tools: “In a Personal
Learning Environment (PLE), the learner would
utilise a single set of tools, customised to their
needs and preferences inside a single learning
environment” (p. 507). They also suggest “a
key technological component … is the use of
Web Services” (p. 508). They also emphasise
a Service Oriented Approach (SOA) and the
importance of the issue of interoperability. How-
ever, Milligan et al. (2006) also acknowledge
that “what differentiates a Personal Learning
Toolkit from any other type of tool is difficult
to pin down in terms of features alone; the criti-
cal factors are primarily in how the system is
used, by whom, and in the context of use” (p.
509). Nevertheless, these authors also suggested
that one should have a look at a “wide range of
tools and sites that exhibit what we felt were
characteristics useful in a PLE context” (p.
509). In fact, they surveyed a number of ICT
tools and identified 77 recurring patterns of use
that they further categorised into nine distinct
groups. They further identified a number of key
services that recur in the patterns. Together, these
use patterns and services make up their PLE
Reference model. This reference model was
used to create two PLE toolsets (a standalone
desktop application and a portal based solution).
Chan et al. (2005) claim that foremost “the
complexity of engaging with information and
communication must be reduced” (p. 73). Their
Interactive Logbook (IL) “is designed to address
shortcomings of traditional VLEs through an
integrated solution that allows learners to “ac-
cess, piece together and manage the learning
they do throughout their life, in a range of
institutional, informal and work-based settings
… The PLE provides each student with a set of
learning management tools to run on a wireless
laptop or tablet computer” (p. 74). They seem
to envision an all encompassing interface that
“provides an integrated set of tools to support
learning, including office, communications
and web applications. Rather than replacing
familiar packages such as Microsoft Office,
IL presents documents, email, spreadsheets
etc. within a single frame, with a set of tabs to
switch between them” (p. 75).
Severance et al. (2008), for example, see
personal learning environments married to the
tools and services that are commonly labelled
Web 2.0: “PLEs start with the current and ex-
panding capabilities of the World Wide Web,
especially those referred to often as ‘Web 2.0’
capabilities, those involving individual site
customization of appearance, resource feeds,
tools and tool placement, and increasingly
group or social interactions, and add organizing
mechanisms and tools focused on educational
efforts to produce an environment that can be
optimized for learning” (p. 48).
Johnson et al. (2006) emphasise the issue
of interoperability: “The PLE reference model
proposes a learning environment of interop-
erable services which may be accessed and
organized through a variety of toolkits, where
both tools and services may be selected by the
learner without prejudice. To facilitate this, there
are technical conditions to be met in terms of
standards for interoperability and the eventual
total separation of services from instruments”
(p. 187). In addition, they claim that “the in-
creasing integration of Web syndication into the
functionality of the operating system represents
a gradual evolution of the operating system into
something which is more PLE-like” (p. 188).
This exemplary and somewhat impression-
istic summary certainly serves to illustrate the
overarching tendency to discuss personal learn-
ing environments either exclusively in relation
to the current developments of Web technolo-

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gies, or to even reduce it to a mere synonym
for some sort to technological system or set of
tools. If scrutinised, the claim of some authors
that the term should be rather understood as a
“concept” or “approach” and not as technology,
often appears to be little more than lip service.
Altogether, the current state of the literature on
personal learning environments suffers from
a wide range of, partially incommensurable,
interpretations and conceptualisations.
IS THE VARIETY
AN EXPRESSION
OF PROFESSIONAL
ORIENTATIONS OR
MORE FUNDAMENTAL
CONTRADICTIONS?
It seems obvious that part of the attested vari-
ability of interpretations and conceptualisations
can be attributed to the various professional
identities and orientations of the people who
feel attracted to work on issues around the
digital (re-) instrumentation of activities re-
lated to instruction and study. Proponents of
computer science, for example, are naturally
more drawn to the computational (re-)engi-
neering challenges in that area. Educational
researchers and practitioners, on the other hand,
tend to focus on the overall re-organization
and re-instrumentation potentials for typical
core activities in educational settings. It is not
surprising, that the influence of these differing
professional and disciplinary orientations is
undeniably reflected in the current state of the
discourse on personal learning environments.
However, some of the variability that we
observe in the discourse can also be interpreted
as an expression of a contradiction that is more
fundamental and that is perceived and indi-
vidually processed in rather different ways. We
think that the emergence of “personal learning
environment” as a counter-concept can also
be understood as an expression of a growing
conflict and tension that was, and still is, expe-
rienced by individual educational researchers
and practitioners.
The situation could be described as the
following: On one hand educational institu-
tions have cultivated elaborate systems around
a number of core activities (and their objects).
These activity systems (Engeström, 1987) tend
to absorb new instrumentation options (from the
digital realm) while leaving the general patterns
of control and responsibility (rules, division
of labour, etc.) largely untouched (Fiedler &
Pata, 2009). Central control and provision of
instruments (for its core activities) has been
a dominant pattern in these institutions for
centuries. No wonder that the system tended
to “process” emerging developmental offers
in the digital realm accordingly. The result was
the creation of Course Management Systems
and a palette of digital instruments to be used
in specific instructional activities.
On the other hand a growing number of
individuals experience that the digital realm is
penetrating or absorbing more and more activi-
ties in their life. They experience the digital
instrumentation of all types of activities (in
the workplace, in their social life with friends
and family, related to hobbies and leisure, and
so forth). Naturally, these individuals begin
to experiment with the self-controlled, digital
instrumentation also in relation to their learn-
ing activities (formal or non-formal). Within
this self-directed instrumentation of activities
particular patterns of control and responsibility,
ownership, provision, and so forth, emerge.
These compete with, contrast, and contradict
the patterns that are still driving the institutional
practices. From a historical perspective, the
emergence of the term “personal learning en-
vironment” can be understood as an expression
of this very contradiction and incompatibility
experienced by educational researchers and
practitioners already “living in” (not only with)
the digital realm. The term that they created to
express their tension, however, was and still
is processed in fundamentally different ways
within the wider research community.

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PERSONAL LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS:
WHAT IS IN THE TERM?
In principle there are two, fundamentally dif-
ferent, ways one can conceptually “slice” the
term “personal learning environment”. These
two, fundamentally different, conceptions are
reflected in the current state of the discourse and
continuously surface in the literature on PLEs.
There is a large group of proponents who
basically think and write about “(personal)
learning environments”. Their notion or under-
standing of the term focuses almost exclusively
on issues of (re-)instrumentation of teaching
and studying activity. They treat issues of
personalization, selection, maybe adaptation,
the separation of form and function, and so
forth. All these issues tend to be discussed al-
most exclusively in relation to the existing (or
emerging) state of the leading medium: Web
standards, services, applications and so forth
(for some recent examples see Godwin-Jones,
2009; Taraghi, Ebner, Till, & Mühlburger,
2009; Zubrinic & Kalpic, 2008). In many
cases, fundamental contradictions within the
overall activity system are completely ignored
or remain untouched.
In contrast to this former, rather technologi-
cally oriented, conceptualisation of the term it
is equally possible to explore the notion of
“(personal learning) environments”, or to re-
phrase slightly, “environments for/of personal
learning”. Researchers and practitioners, who
process the concept accordingly, tend to be
more concerned with individuals (or groups)
gaining control over their (intentional) learning
activities (formal and non-formal) and their in-
strumentation (see for example Attwell, 2007b;
Downes, 2007; Johnson & Liber, 2008).
For educational theorising and research
this second reading of the term seems to be far
more appropriate and fruitful. First, it appears
to be rather short sighted to base the further
development of “personal learning environ-
ments” as a concept on the current, and certainly
transient, state of the Web, as an emerging
leading medium.
Second, an educational concept eventually
needs to be rooted in an explicit (human) change
perspective to develop and maintain any lasting,
generative power for theorizing and empirical
research in education.
A review of recent literature on Personal
Learning Environments (Attwell, 2007a,
2007b; Bhattacharya & Dron, 2007; Chan,
Corlett, Sharples, Ting, & Westmancott, 2005;
Costello, 2007; Downes, 2007; Dron & Bhat-
tacharya, 2007; Godwin-Jones, 2009; Johnson,
Beauvoir et al., 2006; Johnson & Liber, 2008;
Johnson et al., 2006; Kerres, 2007; Kolas &
Staupe, 2007; Lubensky, 2007; Mazzoni &
Gaffuri, 2009; Milligan et al., 2006; Neuhaus,
2007; Olivier & Liber, 2001; Pilkington,
Meek, Corlett, & Chan, 2006; Severance et
al., 2008; Taraghi et al., 2009; Tindal, Pow-
ell, & Millwood, 2007; van Harmelen, 2006,
2008; Wilson, 2005, 2008; Wilson et al.,
2006; Zubrinic & Kalpic, 2008), however,
produced only a single contribution (Johnson
& Liber, 2008) in which the authors make an
explicit attempt to anchor an exploration of
the concept of personal learning environments
within a model of “the personal learner” (p.
3). Though we have referred to and made ex-
plicit use of different models (Harri-Augstein
& Cameron-Webb, 1996; Harri-Augstein &
Thomas, 1991; Thomas & Harri-Augstein,
1985) in earlier works (Fiedler, 2003; Sharma
& Fiedler, 2007), we have recently made an
explicit effort (Fiedler & Väljataga, in press)
of describing our work in direct conversation
with the propositions and terminological dis-
tinctions made by Johnson and Liber. While this
paper is certainly not the place for a detailed
description of such modelling efforts, it seems
important to emphasise that there is certainly
a general and somewhat discomforting lack of
theorising on the “personal learning” aspect
of the concept under reflection here.

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CONSIDERING THE
SOCIO-HISTORIC CONTEXT
OF THE EMERGENCE OF
THE NOTION OF PERSONAL
LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
The contradiction that we have described above
in relation to the dominant (digital) instrumenta-
tion of current formal education, and the agency
experienced by individuals who “live in” the
digital realm, should not be seen in isolation.
Rückriem (2009), for example, only recently
reminded us that digitalization “has penetrated
every societal process and every societal activity
system” (p. 88) and that “global digitalization
and networking represent the specific ‘leading’
and epoch-making medium of our present time
and provide totally new and rather inexhaust-
ible potentials to human practice” (p. 89). We
currently cannot grasp, let alone predict, the
direction and extent of all related transformation
processes. The emergence of a new “leading”-
or even “dominating” - medium undoubtedly
poses formidable developmental challenges for
individuals and current activity systems.
Individually and collectively we seem to be
living through a transition phase that produces
mounting contradictions for existing activity
systems and individuals. The emerging leading
medium, however, is gradually changing what
we perceive as a potential object of activity, or an
artefact that can be turned into a helpful instru-
ment. We see this as a co-evolutionary process,
since human needs, imagination, and activity
in turn will shape the further development of
the leading medium and new human abilities
emerge. No doubt that individual and collec-
tive learning activity (formal or non-formal)
is equally affected by these transformations.
Educational intervention and research needs
to respond to these challenges and support the
necessary individual and collective develop-
mental moves and trajectories.
Since we are still in the early stages of
a massive, co-evolutionary transition phase
that will most likely result in the emergence
of computation, digitisation, and the overall
digital realm as the dominant medium, we
need to expect a disparity in developmental
trajectories of “living in and with the digital
realm.” In many ways we can currently witness
how more and more areas of human activity are
gradually augmented and transformed by getting
“morphed” into the digital realm. In early stages
of this process the dominating developmental
move seems to be the search for and acquisi-
tion of functional equivalents (e-mail replaces
letters or phone calls), then new configurations
of instruments are explored, and finally new af-
fordances (potentials for action) emerge through
a co-evolutionary development of the dominant
medium and human dispositions. Education and
its digital (re-)instrumentation is no exception
to this general pattern.
EDUCATIONAL WORK IN
THE FACE OF THE ONGOING
TRANSFORMATION
Early stages of fundamental media transforma-
tions in general seem to be dominated by the rep-
lication of old patterns within the new medium
(Giesecke, 2002). Therefore, it should come
with very little surprise that many educators
and educational researchers seem to maintain
the view that it is quite appropriate to limit their
efforts on the (re-)design, (re-)instrumentation,
and implementation of particular learning ac-
tivities, while mostly reproducing traditional
patterns of control and responsibility. In fact,
this position and enactment is somewhat to
be expected. However, from an educational
perspective it certainly needs to be addressed.
In the light of the ongoing socio-economic
developments and the emergence of digitalisa-
tion and networking as the leading or dominant
medium (Rückriem, 2003, 2009) for the co-
evolutionary transformation of individual and
collective life (way of being) and its instrumen-
tation, we need to scrutinize traditional patterns
of control and responsibility in education, and
in higher education in particular.
From an educational intervention perspec-
tive, we need to make an attempt to re-configure
teaaching activity so that the individual personal

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adult learners can actualize and execute control
and responsibility on that level by modelling
and actively shaping their own (personal) learn-
ing activity and its specific (personal learning)
environment (Fiedler & Väljataga, 2010; Väl-
jataga & Fiedler, 2009). It is important to note
here that any (intentional) learning activity, be
it attached to a formal educational setting or
not, can potentially benefit from the personal
modelling of the activity itself and the active
shaping of a specific (personal learning) envi-
ronment for its execution.
We consider it as a valuable, educational
goal in itself, that the individual develops per-
sonal control of different types of (intentional)
learning activity (formal or not), a certain
level of transitory fluency between them, and
the active shaping of their specific (personal
learning) environments. We think that this goal
merits diverse and multifaceted educational
interventions (see for example Väljataga, 2010)
that hold the potential to open up progressive,
developmental moves for the personal (adult)
learner.
To summarise:
• We need to scrutinise traditional patterns
of control and responsibility in (higher)
education
• Personal (adult) learners need to be able to
model and actively shape their own learning
activities and their specific environments
• A potential (personal learning) environ-
ment for a particular learning activity is
made of all the resources (artefacts, natural
objects, people) that an individual is aware
of and has access to at a given point in time
and that s/he can turn into instruments to
mediate her actions (Fiedler & Pata, 2009)
• We need to stimulate the explicit explo-
ration of the digital realm in relation to
particular learning activities and the con-
scious shaping of their potential (personal
learning) environments.
CONCLUSION
Since we seem to be living in an early stage of
a fundamental media transformation (digitalisa-
tion and networking) (Erdmann & Rückriem,
2010) that currently can be characterized by a
huge disparity and variety of developmental
stages and trajectories, we should not orien-
tate our conceptualisations of human change
and development (in education, counselling,
therapy, and so forth) on the current state of the
leading medium and its most prominent artefacts
(digital, material, or conceptual).
If we do so, we run the risk that many
individuals simply engage in the temporary
exploration of a succession of “new toys”
without ever connecting their experiences with
a wider model of themselves as personal (adult)
learners (Fiedler & Väljataga, forthcoming). A
simple collection of potential resources (arte-
facts, natural objects, people) does not make a
“personal learning environment,” if there is no
personal model of (intentional) learning activity
in the first place, or if people run on out-dated
models from previous times (Thomas & Harri-
Augstein, 2001).
What is currently presented as “personal
learning environments” as such, or as their
instantiations, obscures the fact that these collec-
tions of digital artefacts are mostly a snapshot of
the current state of development of the emerging
leading medium. From an (adult) educational
perspective, however, we need to support in-
dividuals (and groups) to gain awareness and
control over a range of learning activities and
their environments, and eventually their overall
development as personal (adult) learners living
in (and not only with) the digital realm.
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International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments, 2(4), 1-11, October-December 2011 11
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SebastianH.D.FiedlerisaresearcherandprojectmanagerattheCentreforSocialInnovation
inVienna,Austria.Sebastianisaneducationalpsychologist(Dipl.-Psych.(Univ.),Universityof
Erlangen-Nürnberg,Germany)whoalsoholdsadegreeinInstructionalDesign&Technology
(MEd,UniversityofGeorgia,USA).Hehasworkedforindustryonnumeroushuman-centered
designandinformation architectureprojectsandlecturedin Media Pedagogy graduate pro-
gramsatvariousuniversities.Since2005hehasworkedmainlyoninternationalresearchand
developmentprojectsineducationaltechnology.Hismainresearchinterestsarerelatedtoadult
education,self-directionand self-organizationineducation,andtheroleofsocialmedia and
networkedtechnologywithintheongoing(digital)transformationofhumanactivities.
TerjeVäljatagaisaresearcherandlectureratTallinnUniversityintheCentreforEducational
Technology.SheholdsaDoctorofScienceinTechnologyfromTampereUniversityofTechnol-
ogy,Finland.Herbackgroundisteachereducation,naturalsciences(MSc,TallinnPedagogical
University,Estonia)andtelematicsapplicationineducationandtraining(MSc,Universityof
Twente,TheNetherlands).Shehasexperienceinteachingatsecondaryschoolanduniversity.
Shehasbeeninvolvedinvariouseducationalresearchprojectsbothlocalandinternationalsince
2004.Herresearchinterestsarerelatedtoadulteducationandmediapedagogy,socialmedia
implementationinhighereducation,personallearning environmentsinformalandinformal
educationalsettingsandcompetenceadvancementforself-directingintentionallearningprojects.