a Personal Learning environment was not an application. A PLE is comprised of all the different tools we use in our everyday life for learning.
All educational software, implicitly or otherwise, either enhances or restrains certain pedagogic approaches to learning. There is no such thing as pedagogically neutral software. A Personal Learning Environment could allow a leaner to configure and develop a learning environment to suit and enable their own style of learning.
Social software offers the opportunity for narrowing the divide between producers and consumers. Consumers become themselves producers, through creating and sharing.
This is paper written back in 2007 about PLNs. The author argues that PLN are the future of elearning because of the power they have to offer individualized learning and give the learner the opportunity to organize his/her own learning. That educational institutions cannot expect to simply recreate the same forms of learning used in tradition education online. rather that we must learn to adapt to the new and emerging technologies of ubiquitous computing and social software. Considering that this article was written 9 years ago, I found it to be extremely accurate and representative of PLNs today.
This 'Need-to-Know' blog post series features noteworthy stories that speak of need-to-know developments within higher education and K-12 that have the potential to influence, challenge and/or transform traditional education as we know it. 1) Purdue's three-year degree: "Think 3 Years!
Excellent way for students to share research projects, book reviews, poetry, language classes, music lessons, etc..! Teachers can sign up for a free account which includes 1 grid with multiple topics.