Exploring Different Routes from LMS Towards PLE: A Dialectical Perspective

Abstract

This paper draws a big picture in order to summarize three alternative software development projects aiming at offering an technologically and pedagogically innovative alternative to the mainstream software platform used in Technology-Enhanced Learning today: institutional Learning Management Systems. The analysis follows the dialectical logic, comparing and contrasting various initiatives in creating Personal Learning Environments as a dialectical antithesis to LMS. The paper analyses three innovative PLE solutions that can be interpreted as the dialectical synthesis, that are making use of the best from the both worlds: LMS and PLE.