Learning and Diversity in the Cities of the Future

This publication includes the Proceedings of the PLE Conference 2013. The Conference on Personal Learning Environments is now an established annual international, scientific event and a reference point for the current state of the art in research and development in Personal Learning Environments (PLE). The PLE Conference creates a space for researchers and practitioners to share concepts, case studies and research related to the design, development and implementation of Personal Learning Environments in diverse educational contexts including formal and informal education.

The 4th PLE Conference in 2013 took place at Beuth University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, Germany together with a parallel event at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. The PLE Conference 2013 received 75 submissions and welcomed almost 100 delegates from Europe, Asia, Australasia, North and South America and Africa.The papers included in the Proceedings provide rich and valuable theoretical and empirical insights into Personal Learning Environments. Personal Learning Environments (PLE) is an approach in Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) based on the principles of learner autonomy, ownership and empowerment.

PLEs are integrated, individual environments for learning which include specific technologies, methods, tools, contents, communities and services constituting complex learning infrastructures, enhancing new educational practices and at the same time emerging from these new practices. This represents a shift away from the traditional model of technology-enhanced learning based on knowledge transfer towards a model based on knowledge construction and sharing.