Collaborative Development of Educational Modules - E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning - page 207

Figure 10. IMATool: Importing ontologies

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS and resources that can lead to a deeper engagement

with content to facilitate their learning.
PLEs are a result of the evolution of Web 2.0
and its impact on the learning process. As stated
by Downes (2007), the values that underlie the
PLEs and Web 2.0 are the same: (1) the fostering
of social networks and learning communities; (2)
the emphasis on creation rather than consumption;
and (3) the decentralization of content and control.

In this section we provide some insights about
the emerging trends in lifelong learning, focus-
ing on open issues of collaborative development
and collaborative learning and their implications
to the establishment of innovative learning op-
portunities.
Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) can
be pointed out among the promises to the next
generation of active and lifelong learning. The
term PLE describes the tools, communities, and
services that constitute the personal educational
platforms used by learners to drive their own
learning and achieve their educational goals (EDU-
CAUSE, 2009). In short, PLEs represent a shift
away from the model in which learners consume
information through independent channels (e.g.
libraries, textbooks, LMSs) moving instead to a
model where learners draw connections from a
growing matrix of resources that they select and
organize. Hence, PLEs put students in charge of
their own learning processes, challenging them to
actively consider and reflect on the specific tools

• Learning in communities: Communities

of practice are formed by people who en-
gage in a process of collective learning in a
shared domain - people share a concern or
a passion for something they do and learn
how to do it better as they interact regu-
larly (Downes, 2007). So, the necessary
condition to learning occurs is the active
participation in the community, what in-
volves, essentially, a conversation between
the learner and the other members of the
community. Such conversation, in the Web
2.0 era, consists not only of words but
of images, video, multimedia and much