Personal Learning Environment (PLE) are basically set learning goals. The students decide what they want to learn, and how. The learner manages the content and the process of what they want to learn. The students are also able to communicate with other students from around the globe while they are in the process of learning. The personal learning environment is an electronic environment that allows someone to learn with the available resources. For some, a personal learning environment can consist of online resources such a blog, forum, or a specific web page. It can also consist of some sort of program or software. A PLE (Personal Learning Environment) can be as simple as a browser that has been configured with browser buttons and add ons to make one's learning more efficient.

" The heart of the concept of the PLE is that it is a tool that allows a learner (or anyone) to engage in a distributed environment consisting of a network of people, services and resources. It is not just web 2.0, but it is certainly web 2.0 in the sense that it is (in the broadest sense possible) a read-write application.” (Downes, 2006)