Organized Learning in Human History: Oral Tradition to Personal Learning Environment ( PLE)

Education has been a mainstay of many of human societies throughout civlizations. Education is a process of transmiiting of content- knowledge, experience and values from one generation to another. The mode and means of education have been always evolving and are reflection of state of art of technology avaialable to that society at that time. Oral tradition was the chief mode of education for most part of human history. However arrival of new technologies periodically have helped people to find news ways of delivering education. The invention of  printing press in 14th century and consequent ability to produce books in large numbers gave impetus to educational process and helped to build modern universities. Liberal education promoted and practiced by universities tried to reach masses and offer education in large scale. Later development such a radio, TV and other made education more accessible. However, education was organized around an institution and all learning happened in the " class room" in real world and physical settings.

The advent of networks - starting from the Internet to the state of the art Web 2.0 have unleashed new possibilities for education and more for learners. Today it is possible for learners to not to depend on resources provided by educational institutions such as teaching, library etc. The access to web resources such as search engines, wikipedia have empowered the learner to oragnize their educational activities on the web. Such arrangements constructed by learners by mashing up an assorted set of resources - blogs, groups, learning networks is called a personal learning enviroments ( PLE).