Paradigm shift: From ePortfolios to PLEs

A Personal Learning Environment (PLE) reflects, as a concept, the combination of the set of tools that we use around internet, helping to perceive what we are and what we learn. PLEs are able to bring together all learning experiences acquired in different contexts and mix those experiences in order to reflect ones knowledge. This paper aims at analyzing and exploring the advantages of a PLE, focusing specially on the use of ePortfolios in this context, by considering different approaches and exploring the relationship between the development of an e-portfolio and the students learning styles and multiple intelligences. This focus results from our perception that being aware of the students learning preferences is essential to enhance the quality of the teaching-learning environment, developing different kinds of activities and using different learning tools. In order to understand if and how those concepts (ePortfolios, learning styles and multiple intelligences) are related and to develop some understanding on an approach to correlate them, we have used some assessment tools and applied them in a case study in the area of translation and terminology leaning. The study, briefly described in this paper, has been a well succeeded one. However, we expect to foster further knowledge on the factors that should be changed during the teaching-learning process, by detecting and suggesting improvements. For that we will also reflect on what should be done to achieve better results when using ePortfolios, and consider other tools and approaches to enhance this process, such as social networks.