Technology for tomorrow’s educators Personal Learning Environments (PLE) represent a new trend in education, which could help engage students and provide a more individualised means of learning. The IMAILE project is using the pre-commercial procurement process to stimulate innovation targeted at practical needs, as project coordinator Ellinor Wallin explains The teaching profession
is keen to harness the benefits of technology in education, using it to provide teaching tailored to each student’s individual needs. However, technology must be targeted at practical educational needs if benefits are to be realised, an issue which is central to the IMAILE project. “The objective of the project is to identify new technologies to the challenges posed by increased demand for personalised learning, especially in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects,” explains Ellinor Wallin, the project’s coordinator. The project’s research covers primary and secondary education, aiming to enable closer dialogue between the technology demand and supply sides. “We are looking at pre-commercial procurement (PCP) processes. A key goal is to avoid ‘locking-in’ innovation capacity for SMEs and industry,” continues Wallin. “We have identified this common challenge of increasing demand for personalised learning, to which there are not currently any viable solutions available on the market.”
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Class sizes The primary reason this has been identified as a major issue on the European level is rising class sizes. The average ratio is between 24-26 students to one teacher, making it difficult for staff to focus on individual needs. “All children require personalised learning – we are all
(PLEs) provide a means of providing more individualised teaching to all students; Wallin says some educational institutions already offer such environments. “PLEs are based upon the individual interests of the student, and are tailored to those interests,” she explains. “So a PLE should help the student to select the tasks that
Personal Learning Environments should support all students in reaching their goals. This could be students with concentration problems for example, but it can also be the gifted students, those who need different kinds of exercises and tasks to remain motivated individuals – but some require it more intensively than others. They may have concentration disabilities, such as ADHD, which is increasingly common in the classroom and demands a lot of attention from a teacher. This means there is less one-to-one interaction between the teacher and other students,” points out Wallin. Personal Learning Environments
interest them in a particular subject. It can help them with tasks or planning according to their individual needs.” These types of PLEs are currently used more for upper-secondary or university level education, now Wallin and her colleagues are investigating how their use could be extended further into primary and secondary education. Researchers
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