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."

@suifaijohnmak has created a list of references for weeks 1 and 2 of #plen2010. Includes the readings and a selection of the conversations, resources, etc that have been shared. Hopefully this will continue to be developed.

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.

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.

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.

"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."

The good old 'Skills Versus Knowledge' debate. How can they be measured ? Michael refers to 'serious gaps between elite educational credentials and actual individual competence'.What makes for great reading are the comments.