Group items tagged

"The Personal Learning Environment concept is relatively new and is often used interchangeably with Personal Learning Network. The earliest reference is attributed to George Siemens in his 2004 paper, Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. Downes and Attwell have also popularised the concept with Downes describing the PLE as "a tool that allows for a learner (or anyone) to engage in a distributed environment consisting of a network of people, services and resources" (2006, p23). Semantically, a personal learning environment and a personal learning network differ, with a network referring to connections and the interaction between them, and an environment referring to a broader definition that includes more passive tools and settings. The network and its broader socially constructed environment are interdependent, constantly shaping each other and unable to be separated."

One of the several thoughtful summaries of the Week 1 topic PLEs versus PLNS, The author summarises the PLE/PLN conversation as: # People being accountable in their own learning # People connecting and forming communities # People using online tools, as well as others # Personal knowledge and learning growing and expanding # A life-long portfolio of learning Apart from the need for on-line tools (I think we could and did have a PLE/PLN using traditional human contact and pre-web technology), I can largely accept these definitions.

"A definition for the term Personal Learning Environment (PLE), remains elusive. Conception about what should constitute a PLE depends on the perspective of the commentator. For example, the priorities for a PLE are different for a tertiary student, a university administrator, an instructor, a working professional, or an adult who persues an eclectic path of lifelong learning. Metaphorically, an individual may engage in a learning process that is either more acquisitional or participatory (Sfard, 1998). There are inconsistencies across these positions about what a PLE should do. But whether constructively and defensively, interest in PLE appears to be growing. At the time of writing this introduction (August 2006), no particular product or service exists that can definitively be categorised as a PLE, although some prototypical work is in progress. An inclusive, authoritative account about PLEs does not yet exist. Only a handful of articles have appeared in the academic and public press about PLEs since the term gained currency in 2004. This article has been compiled after tracking recent conversations in the blogosphere and following social bookmarks. "

Workplace learning

Nice summary of the first week's readings and discussion by Stefanie Pike, Educational Technology and Change Journal.  "Both the discussion and readings helped me to refine my understanding of both concepts. To me, the term personal learning network refers to processes and structures within the personal learning environment. Another personal learning outcome is my new awareness of the importance of "curation" in online classes, an issue I have not yet thought about. A great deal of discussion time was dedicated to the problem of curation, that is, how to make the results of a forum or live discussion available without having to read through all comments. Dave Cormier and the participants vented different ideas and approaches - from structuring the process of curation in a wiki and using word clouds like Wordle and visualizations like concept maps to discourse analysis and approaches from computational linguistics. "Stephen Downes encouraged participants to be selective in their attention and activities within the class. "Think of it as football.  People do not stop watching football just because they cannot watch everything!" I wonder if Stephen was talking about american football or soccer? In soccer you just watch the player with the ball.

"Today I have come to the pre-event for #altc2010, 'Learning Literacies in a Digital Age' (note not 'Digital Literacy'), and have had a really interesting afternoon thinking about the challenges that face us in HE in giving graduates key digital skills."

"George Siemens, with Athabasca's Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute, is best known for his development of the pedagogical model of networked learning known as Connectivism. He and Steven Downes have pioneered the development of massive open courses, in which many hundreds of students study and learn in open and networked contexts." - It's all about MOOCs like PLENK2010

Some really high quality reflection/summarization/curation coming out of the Week 5 topic on Assessment in a PLE/N. This is one example.

Interesting blog post that uses Dawley's social network engagement levels (identify network, lurk, contribute, create, lead) (Dawley, 2009) to annotate a PLE diagram.

good slideshare presentation on PLE's

"Online, we are obsessed with size and numbers (Twitter followers, open courses, number of blog hits, Google alerts on ourselves/blogs, etc). But you don't need to run an open course with large numbers of participants to make an impact. An open course for five people is just fine. It's the act of giving, not the subsequent impact, that is most significant. "

Howard says: Infotention is a word I came up with to describe the psycho-social-techno skill/tools we all need to find our way online today, a mind-machine combination of brain-powered attention skills with computer-powered information filters. The inside and outside of infotention work best together.......................Unless a great many people learn the basics of online crap detection and begin applying their critical faculties en masse and very soon, I fear for the future of the Internet as a useful source of credible news, medical advice, financial information, educational resources, scholarly and scientific research

The early stages are when it's important to GRAB the learner before they get that "I'm alone" feeling.

a course i'd like to take... but not at the same time as #plenk2010 (time limitations, you see)

The efficacy of a World-Wide Web mediated formative assessment