Bridging the Gap between PLE and LMS

Learning Management Systems (LMS) represent today's preferred technology for institutional e-learning. Unfortunately, they show poor adaptability to each user's needs, and learners may suffer from the walled garden effect. Many researchers are investigating the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) as a way to overcome such limitations, fostering a lifelong learning perspective. In this paper we propose to extend a LMS, namely DIEL, to unify the benefits of LMS and PLE, supporting better learning experiences and processes. Experiences with the first prototype are also briefly summarized.