Building Personal Learning Environments by using and mixing ICT tools in a professional way

Oct 15, 2026

A teaching experience introduces ICT tools to higher-education students through hands-on sessions, aiming to support development of Personal Learning Environments (PLE) and a naturalistic understanding of that process. The study shows strong student appreciation for new ways to complete tasks and course work, while many initially associate learning mainly with information acquisition and memorization. Findings also highlight students’ limited prior ICT tool experience, evolving views on Web 2.0, and the value of tools that help plan work, save time, simplify complex tasks, and enable independence and collaboration.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

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Personal Learning environments for initial professional learning

Building PLEs in a university course, an overview of the process

and mixing Tools professional way Building Personal Learning Environments by using and mixing ICT tools in a professional way Linda Castañeda [lindacq@um.es](lindacq@um.es) Javier Soto [fjaviersoto@um.es](fjaviersoto@um.es) University of Murcia, Spain Summary This paper reports on a teaching experience of the introduction of ICT to higher education students in a complementary professional approach and a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) development approach, as well as a naturalistic study based on this experience. The central focus of this methodology was the use of hands-on sessions to introduce students to some specific ICT tools, and exploring the building process of an awareness about their Personal Learning environments. In terms of learning, we confirmed that students very much appreciate new ways of developing their tasks and their course work. Even when the great majority of students associates learning with acquiring only information and some of them associate learning with memorizing. In terms of Technology, after this experience we can conclude that students, when arriving at university, have no experience –even knowledge- in the use of ICT tools . In addition, students from the first year of the degree don’t think they use Web 2.0 (awareness), and even more, they don’t believe that they can use ICT tools for learning, even if they actually do . They value, useful tools which help them to plan their tasks, save time, simplify complicated tasks and, definitively, have fun; but also they specially value the ICT tools they discovered, seeing opportunities for Independency, collaboration, self importance in the learning process The vast majority of students have a basic perception of their PLE. Few of them don’t relate tools with themselves but with their tasks, and only some of them go one step further by establishing more complex relationships between tools, contents, tasks and themselves enriching each other. Keywords PLE, Personal Learning Environments, higher education, ICT, web 2.0, teaching 9 L.Castañeda and J.Soto Digital Education Review-[http://greav.ub.edu/der/](http://greav.ub.edu/der/) I. Personal Learning environments for initial professional learning We live an incredibly exciting time for learning, even more, for learning to learn. Latest twenty years, and the World Wide Web development, have opened a lot of opportunities for all of us in terms of accessing to information. Moreover, the last decade in terms of technologies, has increased massively the possibilities for people of collaborating easily each other, doesn't matter how far away from each other they are. Technologies related to Web 2.0 user features, Social Networking, Mobile technologies, Ubiquitous connections, and so on, have changed gradually but rapidly the role that information has in our life, and how this information must be founded, analyzed, shared and used for every activity we do (Attwell, 2007) . Consequently, the role ICT technologies have changed as well, they are not only a way to bring information any more, they have configured around our activities, environments for relationship between the information and us, such as between other people and us (Downes, 2010) . Indeed, these technologies have configured a crucial part of the environment around us. We are doomed to be Residents with technologies, not visitors any more (White, 2009) . Evidently those changes have a critical impact in to the learning process conception (TorresKompen et al., 2008) . Learning is a process that today, less than never, must be hold exclusively in classrooms. Informal learning processes enrich all the time initial, professional, and lifelong learning processes (Costa, 2010) . Informal ways for learning, embedded in our formal environments for working and living, are more important than ever before (Cross, 2010) . On this situation, think in initial professional training from an integral perspec

FAQs

What is the main goal of the teaching experience described in the paper?

To introduce ICT to higher-education students using a complementary professional approach and a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) development approach.

How did students respond to the learning activities involving ICT tools?

Students appreciated new ways of developing tasks and course work, even though many initially associated learning mainly with acquiring information and memorizing.

What did the study conclude about students’ prior experience with ICT tools?

After the experience, the authors concluded that students arriving at university had little or no experience and limited knowledge in using ICT tools.

Oct 15, 2026

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