The Sustainability of Personal Learning Environments Regarding 21St Century Skills

Abstract

In today's modern societies, individuals need instant access and the ability to personalize the constantly increasing, changing, and renewing information. This situation has led to a change in the learning styles of learners. In this regard, innovations in ICTs have especially influenced people, and they strive to create their own personal learning environment (PLE) and network. Personal learning environments may be defined as the use of prevalent online platforms for personalization, collaboration, communication and sharing, using all learning tools easily from a single source, and to connect to social networks, in addition to learning. A PLE operator may integrate web 2.0 tools into their network and establish their own learning environment. The use of PLEs in educational systems is a debated topic. Due to the responsibility of learning belonging to the learner, there are differing views regarding ensuring the continuity and persistence of learning. The use of PLEs in learning systems and the sustainability of the learning process is important due to the inherent strengths and weaknesses of PLEs. This age, in which information is constantly renewed, lifelong learning gains importance, and learning can take place effectively at any moment, it may be stated that PLEs will be of great importance in realizing lifelong learning. In this regard, this paper discusses what a PLE is, what its components are, its strengths and weaknesses, how it has been used in education, how it may be used in education in the future, and conclude with suggested applications for life long sustainability of PLEs based on skills of the 21st century.