Paper looking at the impact of social sofware and Personal Learning Environments on the future of education. The paper first looks at the history of schooling and its relation to the economy and to production. It examines critiques of the schooling system and looks at pressures on the schooling system resulting from the changing forms of production and economy in the present period of intense technological change on the one hand, and the changing ways in which people are using technology for communication and knowledge development. The paper suggests that the Personal Learning Environment may herald a profound change in education systems and in the relationships between educations systems and institutions and learning.