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The purpose of this study is to explore the perception of the users concerning the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in enhancing personal learning profile (PLP), personal learning network (PLN) and personal learning environment (PLE) and their effect on the perceived ease of use, perceived effectiveness and perceived usefulness for enhancing the overall attitude and satisfaction of the e-learning.

The data were collected from students and professionals who have ever used the e-learning module, and smart partial least square-structural equational modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to see relations between the different variables.

It was seen that the PLE is affecting both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. The research has shown that perceived ease of use showed a mediating effect between PLE and attitude and satisfaction. Further satisfaction mediates between perceived ease of use and intention. PLP has come out to significantly impacting perceived effectiveness. The multigroup analysis also showed that the attitude and satisfaction level affecting intention to use the e-learning module differ across the two groups of learners, i.e. gender and type of learners.

The data are collected from students and professionals who have ever used the e-learning module and wholly based on their perceptions, leading to self-perception bias.

The current research is trying to integrate the user perception of PLP, PLN, PLE into the framework of the technology acceptance model and see how they impact the overall attitude and satisfaction of the learners. AI can be used to improve them and make e-learning more adherent to the users. AI can play an essential role in generating the right environment by matching the profile of the learner.

The aim is to explore the role of personal learning environments in an already ICT‐dense context and in combination with some educational approaches in the field of technology enhanced education. The paper seeks to analyze how personal learning environments are not a device but a learning strategy that threatens the way educational institutions and their functions are understood, by contributing to enable a borderless learning society.

The research begins by revisiting Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development and assesses the role of educators and educational institutions as the actual more knowledgeable others in scaffolding learners' learning paths. This role is put in relationship with different learning scenarios (formal, non‐formal, informal and autodidactic) according to their inner structure (or lack of) and degree (or absence) of planning. The research then puts PLEs in relationship with other “physical” spaces (VLEs and LMSs), the digitization of content (open educational resources), records and assessments (e‐Portfolios) and the possibility to flip some traditional tasks or processes that enabled regaining the social component in the classroom (Education 2.0).

It is suggested that PLEs have come to close the circle of ICTs in education with a highly transformative power: the power to blur the boundaries between formal teaching and informal learning. Indeed, the traditionally difficult transition from one learning scenario to a different one has been made smoother by the appearance of OER and, especially, social media constructs that can be used for learning purposes, especially within a PLE‐based strategy.

It is stated that institutions should embrace and even foster the possibility that learners could easily and intensively switch educational resources, just like they could shift among different registers and learning scenarios, as a newly enabled way to tear down the artificial divisions that formal learning edified.

The purpose of this paper is to explore technology strategies and policies in the areas of standards, repositioning of technology, and service‐oriented architecture that focus on enabling innovation while retaining coherence and viability.

The paper uses the concepts of shearing layers and Personal Learning Environments to define appropriate boundaries between individual, departmental, institutional, national, and global network control.

Education systems today can be characterised as a recursive metasystem of separate systems. Each system uses innovation as part of strategic planning to try to realise its potential and release its latency. However, these strategic activities generate friction with the metasystem, which puts the brakes on innovation in its subsystems. The architectural concepts of shearing layers and flexible couplings provide a model for reducing this friction. One way of enabling shearing layers in educational technology is to offer polymodal access to services.

In managing technology, institutions should actively consider relocating functions to other layers of the education system, including technologies owned by individual learners and teachers. They should think of technology in terms of supporting flexible shearing layers between rapidly changing organisational structures. The concept of polymodal access should be used when looking to deploy services at any level of the organisation. Critical cross‐cutting issues of privacy, identity, and business intelligence need to be designed into the institutional and departmental service infrastructure. Institutions should develop innovation‐oriented technology policies. At the department or course level, policies should also reflect the position of the organisation with regard to the equitable experience of education.

The approach outlined demonstrates that institutions have the capacity to reinvent their technology strategies and policies in such a way as to unlock innovation at the departmental and personal level, without creating a crisis in IT service management. On the other hand, it also shows that the PLE perspective needs to be balanced with a broader view of student disposition and institutional goals to become recognised as part of the institutional technology strategy and policies.

The purpose of this case study is to reflect on the blended pedagogies applied with a second year cohort of Early Years (EY) undergraduate students. It focusses on the experiences of both learner and educator as they explore the use of blending technology and outdoor learning to support a holistic curriculum in 21st century early years practice.

A reflective case study approach was applied to practice in situ as part of an outdoor learning project within a Level 5 module. One Higher Education (HE) tutor and 24 EY students participated in the study. Three research questions informed the reflective study: an exploration around the tensions of how digital technology might be blended with the more traditional, sensory and experiential pedagogies of outdoor learning, using an app. It considers the effects of this approach on student learning and what lessons can be learnt by the tutor in attempting to model these pedagogies.

This case study reveals the advantages and discomfort of role modelling a practice as HE tutor that has not been applied before in this context and as such is considered an innovative pedagogy (Koros-Mikis, 2009). EY students engaged in the blended provision, applying digital technology for educational purposes and this resulted in enhanced collaborative learning between students and tutor, affecting attendance and motivation to try new approaches in their practice. Reflecting on this practice has revealed that pedagogical thinking can be transformed when ideas are shared in a way that appears non-judgemental and new approaches can be applied where the right environment affords such opportunities.

Limitations are around sample size, and a longer period of time for students to engage with a Personal Learning Environment (PLE), evidencing sustained engagement. The focus is one that is pertinent to the issues currently being considered as part of curriculum reform in Wales and as such may not hold the same weight in other parts of the world. As a case study, it is recognised that this is not generalizable and thus not easily replicable (Gilbert, 2008).

Issues around modelling pedagogies that depict 21st century learning are highlighted for “digital immigrant” HE teaching staff members. Understanding how to apply digital technology in a digital world within our own, often traditional practices, particularly in the field of early years outdoor learning needs further exploration in light of the new curriculum for Wales so that future practitioners are able to consider the holistic approach of blending pedagogies across areas of learning and not working in subject-specific silos.

The implications of this case study raise questions around the appropriateness of training and development for “digital immigrant” staff members, understanding student digital competency, blending pedagogical approaches, as well as the debate around digital technologies being part of young children's learning within a reformed curriculum in Wales. These challenges present questions that require social consideration as well as arguments as to why they cannot be overlooked.

This case study identifies a need to explore the ways in which blended pedagogies are applied and modelled in HE practice and to observe how it influences students learning and beliefs in their own pedagogical practices. The curriculum reform in Wales suggests that teaching and learning will need to be far more holistic in nature and these two areas currently collide as pedagogies. Thus being able to demonstrate the value of them in synergy will be most helpful to practitioners who will need to make a paradigm shift in their approaches to embrace the new curriculum.

The personal learning environment driven approach to learning suggests a shift in emphasis from a teacher‐driven knowledge‐push to a learner‐driven knowledge‐pull learning model. One concern with knowledge‐pull approaches is knowledge overload. The concepts of collective intelligence and the Long Tail provide a potential solution to help learners cope with the problem of knowledge overload. The paper aims to address these issues.

Based on these concepts, the paper proposes a filtering mechanism that taps the collective intelligence to help learners find quality in the Long Tail, thus overcoming the problem of knowledge overload.

The paper presents theoretical, design, and implementation details of PLEM, a Web 2.0 driven service for personal learning management, which acts as a Long Tail aggregator and filter for learning.

The primary aim of PLEM is to harness the collective intelligence and leverage social filtering methods to rank and recommend learning entities.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the changes taking place when learning moves from a transmissive learning model to a collaborative and reflective learning model and proposes consequences for quality development.

The paper summarises relevant research in the field of e‐learning to outline the differences between e‐learning 1.0 and e‐learning 2.0 and amalgamates it with a series of previously published works. The characteristics of quality development are analyses in a next step and suitable methodologies for developing quality for e‐learning 2.0 environments are selected, proposed and explained.

Even though the question of quality is controversially discussed already when e‐learning 1.0 appeared on the market, e‐learning 2.0 creates even more insecurity. This paper aims at answering the following questions: what constitutes the new, innovative element, which is described by Web 2.0 and e‐learning 2.0? Does this development have consequences for how it assures, manage and develop quality in e‐learning? In three steps, it is described what e‐learning 2.0 constitutes, which basic elements of Web 2.0 it builds on, and what has changed. In a second, step the consequences this implies for quality development in e‐learning are discussed. Third, a number of methods as examples and practical advice on how to further advance quality development are described.

The original value of the paper is to outline the changes which have to be taken into account in new and innovative learning environment which are build on Web 2.0 technologies and to draw consequences for quality development as well as suggest methodologies for educators and learners to improve quality of such learning environments.

Social media have been a powerful source of social and cultural change in the past few years, reframing the ways in which we communicate, interact with information, and build knowledge. In a higher education context, they have had a significant impact in breaking down the walls of traditional classrooms and closed online environments (LMSs). By combining formal and informal contexts and interactions, and enabling the dialog with wider audiences, they bring affordances such as transparency, real-life communication, meaningful tasks, and conversations, which result in a stronger engagement on the part of the students and a better, more diversified learning experience.

In this chapter, I describe the ways in which social media were used in an online master's degree on e-Learning Pedagogy, at Universidade Aberta, Portugal, in an effort to move toward the networked class. Tools and services used include Twitter, Facebook, Delicious and Diigo, blogs, wikis, and Second Life, among many others that students have been using to perform their tasks and publish their work.

This paper aims to examine the different ways in which learners may have ownership over technology-enhanced learning by reflecting on technical, legal and psychological ownership.

The paper uses a variety of examples of technology-enhanced learning ranging from open-source software to cloud storage to discuss the three types of ownership.

It is suggested that learners do not yet own technology-enhanced learning and that, at present, there are different degrees of learner ownership depending on whether technical, legal or psychological ownership are considered.

The discussion presented here is the first to consider all three types of ownership of technology-enhanced learning and demonstrates the complexity of the issue when this broad view is considered.

The societal role of universities (u-pillar) is a long-standing discussion dividing the education researchers worldwide. Entering the sphere of the eminent Nordic education model (NEM), we aim at grasping its contemporaneity with regard to social value creation (SVC) and to the promotion of equality in education (EiE).

A theoretical review of literature revisits the foundations of the NEM in the light of the postmodern education challenges and the inherent governance practices of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the global eduscape.

One of the oldest HEIs in Denmark, Niels Brock Copenhagen Business College (NBCBC), is here instrumentalized as the target case research. The latter exhibited a sophisticated educational design, oriented toward digital apprenticeship and cumulative proximity to the students’ population of both national and international cohorts.

The purpose of this paper is to show that the online learning environment can be seen as the means by which higher education can explore the challenges and opportunities raised by online and digital society.

The paper argues that the online learning environment can be seen as a metaphor for how universities respond to the requirements and challenges of the digital age. Current learning management systems (LMSs) are examined, and compared with the values found in web 2.0 and social media. Current thinking on pedagogy for online learning is then examined. The SocialLearn project at the Open University in the UK is then explained, which seeks to create a disaggregated, decentralised, social system for learners.

The conclusion from the analysis is that there is a conflict between the centralised learning management system (LMS) and the requirements of online pedagogy. The traditional LMS can be seen as embodying the wrong metaphor, that of the traditional classroom. The paper concludes by arguing that such learning environments will be more useful to higher education in coming to understand its response to many of the changes being seen in society, which are facilitated by the new technologies.

The paper provides a framework for considering LMSs and their relation to universities and pedagogy, and an argument for the promotion of more decentralised systems.