Abstract:

The continuously increasing influence and integration of the web 2.0 services and applications in users’ everyday life has, as it is evident, a corresponding impact on their learning behavior. It is a fact that the potential for real time communication, social networking, data sharing, syndication and collaboration, give users wider perspectives and greater possibilities regarding the collection and use of learning resources in order to acquire knowledge in the field of their interest.

A similar picture exists for teachers who, on the one hand, have the opportunity to exploit and take advantage of a variety of new technological tools and, on the other, the responsibility to offer their students new educational perspectives and applications, suitable to their new mentality and attitudes.
As is obvious, the support of this new educational approach could be better served by the use of informal learning environments, the creation of which is based on freely available platforms and tools and does not require a high level of technological skills from users. The “start pages” -among others- belong in this category of software tools. Some of them can provide a solid basis for the creation of Personal Learning Environments (PLE) suitable for every subject and, in this case, for foreign language learning.

A personal learning space based on the Netvibes start page and created specifically for language learning is presented in this paper. This environment includes a variety of services and tools through which the user can approach a foreign language in its original form, having organized access to a variety of authentic multimedia recourses and complete collaboration opportunities with other users and the teacher. The different features and components of this environment, as well as the way it can be used in the foreign language classroom are described and conclusions deriving from the application and the perspectives that this type of environment creates for language learning are drawn.

Keywords:

PLE, Netvibes, Start Pages, Language learning, web 2.0, Personal Learning Environments, collaborative tools.