Abstract

The personal learning environments are understood as contexts in which students learn thanks to their participation and involvement, in collaboration with other students, the teacher, and other adults, in genuine processes of research and collective construction of knowledge about personal and socially relevant issues. The aim of the present paper is to evaluate the effects of the design of personal learning environments when overcoming students’ lack of motivation, so that participants could describe the advantages of their use by relating them to their own learning experiences. The methodology used consisted of an ethnographic evaluative case study and the technique included the content analysis of the data collected from work groups utilizing teachers, students, and parents involved in the experience. The results indicate a potentially promising pedagogical approach to integrate both the formal and informal learning using social media and students’ support of the self-regulated learning. Teachers make the most of this design in terms of students’ motivation, but point out the difficulty of adapting the curriculum to the demands and interests of the education community, modifying teaching and learning methods to the students’ new characteristics, and the need for literacy that would allow for the management of digital tools. The level of task involvement is increased by the novelty of the dynamics, the use of new technologies, and dealing with topics of interest.