Personal Learning Environments: Challenging the networked ecosystems with people agency

Personal Learning Environment (PLE) - as an idea, approach and concept - has demonstrated the potential to support a learner-centred digital learning ecosystem that is diverse, individualised, adaptive, integrated, transparent and skill-based. In a PLE, the locus of control shifts away from the institution to individuals, to the agency of individuals, helping them take control of their learning and build a personal cyber infrastructure and learning ecosystem that extends learning beyond the classroom, institution, or organisation's boundaries using distributed and portable tools and bringing together both formal and informal learning.Understanding what a PLE is and reshaping educational systems to support PLE is more important than ever; as part of the process of refocusing learning and learning environments to prioritize people's agency in the current technological and social conditions.This special issue was conceived as an effort to collectively explore the pathways and challenges of adopting the PLE as a legitimate approach for self-education and lifelong learning and engagement in contextual change. The papers included have a variety of perspectives - theoretical reflections, conceptual analysis, literature reviews, learning and teaching experiences - from the learners' point of view and from the instructors' point of view, as well as tools for improving student experiences. They also include a review of projects that confront the challenge of PLE challenges, and propose research paths that explore different aspects of the implementation of the PLE. This issue brings together authors from different countries and provides data that broadens our view of the object of study and can enrich the discourse.