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The present and future of Personal Learning Environments (PLE) - 9 comments This post is recast from an assignment I completed about four months ago in a Masters Degree course entitled Innovative Practice and Emerging ICT, in which I investigated what PLEs are meant to be and where they might be going. It was originally part of a class wiki. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Towards a Definition 3. Driving Forces 4. Developments to Date 5. Barriers 6. Future Potential 7. References 8. Web Links Introduction 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.

"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. "

From facilitator Dave Cormier -- "The concept of the Personal Learning Environment in all of its wondrous forms has been one that I've struggled with over the last four or five years that I've been familiar with it. I'm very excited to be taking part in the PLENK10 course in order to take the time to focus on these ideas and get a clearer sense of what I mean by the word. I would add, that I think this is one of the central values of an open course… it provides the opportunity to bring clarity to a subject in a field… even if we end up with different clarities"

" Details last edit by sleslie sleslie Sep 1, 2010 8:54 am - 138 revisions hide details Tags * clwe * loosely coupled * ple * plwe * small pieces * web 2.0 Protected A Collection of PLE diagrams As preparation for a workshop I am giving this fall I thought it would be interesting to collect together all the diagrams of PLEs I could find, as a compare and contrast sort of exercise. If you have others, I'd love to know about them. You can log in with the guest account (edtechpost_guest, same password) or email them to me at edtechpost@gmail.com."

"A Collection of PLE diagrams As preparation for a workshop I am giving this fall I thought it would be interesting to collect together all the diagrams of PLEs I could find, as a compare and contrast sort of exercise. If you have others, I'd love to know about them. You can log in with the guest account (edtechpost_guest, same password) or email them to me at edtechpost@gmail.com."

"I think of PLEs as Operating Systems just like regular operating systems are for computer users. In fact, I call the PLE a LearnOS. Thinking of a PLE as a LearnOS helps me also get by the initial comprehension of what it can contain, such as tools, resources and connections, as also how it is deployed - PC, mobile and cloud. I can then move on to think about how learning will occur in this LearnOS by asking not only how the LearnOS can be organized to support my learning (feed aggregation, twitter tags and the like) in a given context, or how my LearnOS is connected to other LearnOS-es out there (PLNs), but also to thinking how my LearnOS can adapt to my learning contexts and my learning needs."

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.

"There has been lots of discussion this week about whether Personal Learning Environment (PLE) and/or Personal Learning Network (PLN) are the right terms to describe what this is all about and some recognition that this a semantics issue. According to Rita Kop PLE is a UK term and PLN an American term. Dave Cormier questions whether the term personal should be used at all. Stephen Downes points out that personal is an OK term if you think about [Personal Learning] Network as opposed to [Personal] Learning Network - and similarly for PLE. I like that - but for me, the words are not as important as the process - although I can see that the process needs nominalising for ease of reference. If I am going to think about introducing the idea of PLEs/PLNs to my colleagues or students then I will be talking about the process and the implications of this process for learning rather than what we should call it, i.e. why it might be preferable for students to learn in environments/spaces of their own choice rather than be confined to an institutions VLE/LMS."

Nice comparison of PLE and an institutional VLE (or LMS) -- in this case Blackboard -- based on what Gabi Witthaus wants to do with her PLE. In conclusion the VLE is seen has constraining so maybe it's the freedom to choose that puts the 'P' in PLE.

An important contribution the the PLE v LMS debate that will be the focus of Week 2. Dave Cormier says that "The PLE/LMS debate is not about autodidacticism, it's about the decentralization of power". Dave and commentors Michael Feldstein and Alan Levine see a a role for institutions, educators and even an LMS in the "brave new world" of the PLE.

Terry Anderson discusses the relative advantages and disadvantages of a PLE and VLE (LMS). This was in 2006 when Anderson was hoping that "Nonetheless, the PLE future seems to be more secure than that of any monolithic LMS. I suspect the LMS systems that survive will do so by opening themselves to standards based enhancements, service requests and the strong evolutionary move towards real learner centric educational applications." Four years on, it hasn't happened yet and if anything the monolithic LMS, at least as exemplified by Blackboard, is still fairly closed ... or where open, open only to incoming information.

A weakness for me of this paper is that the comparison does not seem to be comparing like-for-like. A tabular presentation might have been more helpful.

'What the heck is a PLE and why would I want one?" -- mircobiologybytes.com. @AJCann attempts to define a PLE and contrast it with VLE. Includes a SlideShare presentation. A topic likely to come up again in week 2.

Could teachers and lecturers instead supply these personally relevant and meaningful learning experiences? Diana Laurillard, in her inaugural professorial lecture at the Institute of Education, points to the impossibility of teachers on their own supplying a personalised learning experience.[1] Indeed, the impossibility of supplying learners with personalised learning experiences is, in general, a self-evident truth to those of us who work in the education sector. The only course that remains, then, is for learners to construct these learning experiences for themselves. In fact, self-directed learning is the only economically feasible means of providing a personalised and meaningful learning experience on any kind of massified scale. Whatever the brouhaha about what a PLE is, the thing that underpins and unifies the PLE movement is that it is about learners doing it for themselves; learners taking control of, directing and managing their own learning. A PLE provides the infrastructure for that kind of learning. Of course, infrastructure is only part of the solution; the other part is achieving the pedagogic revolution. This relies on students unlearning their current learning practices and adopting new practices in a guided and supported fashion.

Post that adopts Viplax Baxi's description of a PLE as Learning Operating System (LearnOS) and attempts to align Downes' PLE functions with traditional OS functions. Also discusses the problem of recall ... which is an issue for me too, and one that I try to tackle by bookmarking everything.

Another summary of week 1 reading and a thoughtful discussion of how one might make a PLE a more formal self-learning aid than just a collection of tools and contacts that you have developed over time. That is if it's necessary to deliberately set out to create a PLE in order to achieve some learning aim.

Interesting discussion, started by Emma Stodel of "competencies" in building and managing a PLE. Still not sure that I've seen a good description of just what is a PLE and why you need to be competent.

An interesting slant on the idea of a PLE: to ensure that it is really personal, Jim Groom asks the participants in his class "Digital Story Telling" at UMW to purchase their own internet domain, get a hosting account at a hosting service and point their DNS registry records at it. Then create a blog (presumably using Wordpress, I didn't follow the link to the instructions, but it would be my recommendation). I'm not sure that I'd be quite so anti-institutional, but building a PLE around your own domain certainly ensures that it's identifiably yours.

Building a PLE around your own domain and hosting service certainly ensures that that it's identifiably yours. This is an example from "5 Points about PLEs PLNs for PLENK10", one of the week 1 readings.

"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."

"A UAL graduate should be digitally mature learner, equipped with the critical faculties to create their own Personal Learning Environment (PLE) that will assist them to take advantage of the affordances of technology in their professional, personal and creative lives after UAL. The best way to develop this is through a culture of collaborative inquiry that explores the potential of digital scholarship through a range of authentic situated learning experiences that are relevant to the individuals' area of practice. They should be able to engage in 5 core competencies of curation, critique, creation, collaboration, and communication"

Clear differentiation between PLN and PLE. Me like.

If you visit this site you'll see on the home page the famous Web2.0 tools image that has become a cliche in e-Learning presentations. Nonetheless, this comprehensive collection of free to use tools, curated by Paul, is a useful resource for people wishing to build a PLE or inform students what tools they might want to use in their own PLEs. Thanks to PLENK2010 link gopher @pgsimoes for tweeting this. It was new to me, but looking at the likes page not new to my colleagues at Swansea!