This paper presents an overview of existing virtual learning environments and recent research efforts towards the design of adaptive learning environments. Nowadays, the educational technology offers a considerable number of virtual learning environments to facilitate the learning process, thus supporting web-based education and e-learning to a large extend. E-learning systems work in a synchronous or asynchronous way and have become a common place in all educational environments. Some of them show adaptive characteristics and more rarely some intelligence in the way they communicate with the user. Adaptivity in virtual learning environment has become a prominent research topic during the past decades and has led to a considerable number of web-based adaptive learning environments. Recent research focuses on the further integration of these systems with computational intelligence technologies as well as on the integration of widely used learning management platforms with adaptive tools and web-services.