Mobile Personal Learning Environments Research Articles

Implementing Mobile Learning Within Personal Learning Environments: A Study of Two Online Courses

This article presents a case-study of two distance learning courses, in order to address the question of universal adoption of mobile devices and applications by students, and the impact of these devices in personal learning environments (PLEs). First, a critical discussion of the value of these concepts in the current technological context was carried out, followed by an analysis of their impact on educational use, based on data collected in online courses on physics and statistics at Universidade Aberta, the Portuguese Open University. The results indicated that all students have adopted mobile learning, and the make-up of an individual’s PLE depends more on the learning resources available rather than on gender or age. These findings can help provide more efficient ways to implement learning by connecting current social needs to learners’ mobile PLEs, particularly when flexibility of time and space are of utmost importance. Further studies at the Portuguese Open University will address a larger and more balanced sample of students across more course units.

Imagine a proposal for a personal e-learning environment (PLE) to support the research skills of undergraduate students

The study aimed at identifying the degree of use of undergraduate students in some of the applications of mobile personal learning environments in their academic life, and the opportunities available to these programs and electronic applications when used to support scientific research skills and the most important challenges facing them. The aim was to present a proposed scenario for a training program that aims to employ the use of personal learning environments (PLE) in mobile devices (smart phones, tablets or laptops) to support the scientific research skills and academic skills needed by The study consisted of (154) female students from the Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences. The researcher used a questionnaire consisting of (32) words distributed on three axes after verifying their validity and stability. The researcher also constructed a proposed training program aimed at Use mobile personal learning environments to support scientific research skills. The study concluded with a set of results. In light of this, recommendations were made to activate the use of smart phones and tablets and to encourage students to use them in supporting scientific research skills, dissemination and academic skills. Develop appropriate plans to train students and faculty on what is new in the field of e-learning and mobile education.

Entornos personales de aprendizaje móvil: una revisión sistemática de la literatura

Nowadays personal learning environments appear as student-centered educational spaces to overcome the identified constraints in the institutional learning platforms. However, most of the published researchis based only on the use of computers, without considering mobile electronic devices. This article analyses the scientific and academic production on mobile personal learning environments in Higher Education. From a methodological point of view, the research presented here was conducted through a systematic literature review using various resources such as Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, among others. A large number ofdocuments from 2000 to 2016 were initially collected. Subsequently, selection and quality criteria were applied, and a few studies were obtained that were qualitatively analyzed. The results were described in categories according to the original research questions, including research workson mobile devices and personal learning environments, publications on projects of integrated platforms, research where external tools are used with a pedagogical approach, theoretical contributions, and researchthat evaluates these innovations. In conclusion, mobile personal learning environments are shown as technological scenarios that have been recently introduced in Higher Education. Although successful results have been found, more research is needed to establish generalizations that might be replicable in other contexts.

PLEs in Mobile Contexts: New Ways to Personalize Learning

Today, most people worldwide have mobile electronic devices, which have begun to be used for educational purposes. On the other hand, the adoption of learning management systems in universities has not provided the best results, because students maintain their personal spaces where they learn. The aim of this paper is to conceptualize the mobile Personal Learning Environments (mPLEs) and propose a design structure for implementation. Finally, it is noted that it is now possible to design the mPLE, due to the wide variety of tools, resources, and services of the Web 2.0 optimized for mobile devices.

Mobile Personal Learning Applied to a Software Engineering Subject

Information and communication technologies are changing the tools that people use in their daily life. Teaching and learning processes are also affected. These technologies emphasize the fact that learning is not always linked to an institution or a period of time. However, institutional learning systems do not support these issues, which makes necessary the definition of personal learning environments. This paper describes the experience of the application of a mobile version of these personal environments in an educational context. It allows students the definition of their own personal environments in their mobile device and it is able to exchange information with the institutional systems. From this experience, it is possible to say the definition of mobile personal learning environments is possible, it increases learners' motivation and enriches their learning; and at the same time, it is possible to take into account what the learners do beyond the institution.