Designing and implementing PLEs in a secondary school using Web2.0 tools

Abstract

Although current and upcoming web technologies offer all kinds of new opportunities to support student-centered learning, there does not exist yet a clear roadmap to integrate these technologies into teaching and learning pro- cesses. In this paper a model is introduced in order to develop Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) consisting of Web2.0 tools and to integrate them into teaching and learning processes. Next to this, an example implementation in the context of a secondary school is described. Two questions framed this study. First, how do students integrate PLE tools into their learning activities? Second, what is the students and teacher’s perception of the PLE project? Results show, among others, that web2.0 tools should be thoroughly integrated with active teaching and learning methods in order to realize a student-centered learning environment. It was also concluded that students need enough time and teacher’s facilitation in order to get learning and pedagogical value out of PLEs tools and to be able to truly integrate them into their learning activities.