Linda Castaneda1 , Nada Dabbagh2, Ricardo Torres-Kompen31University of Murcia, Spain {lindacq@um.es}2George Mason University, USA {ndabbagh@gmu.edu}3Universitat Ramon Llull - La Salle Barcelona Campus, Spain {ricardot@salleurl.edu}Received on 26 December 2016; revised on 28 December 2016; accepted on 29 December 2016; published on 15 January 2016DOI: 10.7821/naer.2017.1.229Personal Learning Environments (PLE), as a concept as well as an emerging practice, is not just one of the most innovative dimensions of technology-enabled student-centered learning, but also one of the most challenging disruptions to the institutional traditional conception of knowledge.A PLE is usually described as a structure and process that helps learners organize the influx of information, resources and interactions that they are faced with on a daily basis into a personalized learning space or experience. In a PLE, the learner develops an individualized digital identity through the perceptual cues and cognitive affordances that the personal learning environment provides, such as what information to share and when, who to share it with, and how to effectively merge formal and informal learning experiences (Castaneda, Cosgrave, Marin, Cronin, 2016).Events as the PLE Conference, which started in 2010, emerged as an answer to the need for showcasing, disseminating and sharing the novel and original research (and knowledge) specific to the PLE movement. Additionally, they were a departure from the traditional format of most conferences in that the attendees, who had developed individualized research-based PLE practice, came together in what we call the "spirit of PLEs": sharing, collaborating and creating together.This past decade has seen a dramatic increase in the quantity of research published on PLEs and most of it has been enriched by the papers presented in the successive PLE events that have formed part of special issues of a diversity of journals, including Digital Education Review, the International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments, and others (Hernandez, 2016).Thanks to the previous -and current- debate, experts are trying to understand what our relationship with the PLE concept is, and how it could help us improve the role of technology, people, communities, educational and information resources, cognitive mechanisms and so on, in learning. From these debates and discussions, witnessed at the PLE events and beyond, original discussions regarding institutional or non-institutional education have evolved into how to reconcile -pedagogically and technologically- learning inside and outside formal contexts.Other discussions about technological and pedagogical perspectives have evolved to sociomaterial visions of learning recognising the reciprocal, recursive, and transformative interaction between people and technology.The network, the impact -and training- of metacognition, the horizontal organisation, are emerging and ongoing topics that are enriching the learning debate and forcing new explorations in research and practice. Such investigations will focus more on people and their relationship with technology and less on the use of technology for automating the learning experience.On the one hand, it seems that PLE is no longer the centre of the discussion, at least not as a standalone construct. But, on the other hand, PLE is more than ever the paradigm for supporting new learning models for the digital times.PLEs have had direct implications on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), adaptive learning, and learning analytics, to name a few new learning models and processes that have personalization of learning at their core. MOOCs have been characterised as PLE-type environments providing learners with the appropriate tools to engage in self-directed and personalised learning and integrating social media features to boost opportunistic interaction and informal exchanges between students (Gillet, 2013; Kop & Fournier, 2014). …