Stephen Downes

Some interesting reaction to the advocacy of the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) that has been floating around recently. "The VLE, LMS and PLE are the same. A suggestion that the Internet, and informal networked learning are not enough. That people still need to come to school to learn. That people need to distinguish learning from life, that people need to download and install an application that will solve their learning needs." I am sympathetic to this view, and wonder whether we would need a PLE at all if we had a more generic application (we don't, yet) that performed the same function.