2009 Horizon Report » Two to Three Years: The Personal Web Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years Fifteen years after the first commercial web pages began to appear, the amount of content available on the web is staggering. Sifting through the sheer volume of material — good or bad, useful or otherwise — is a daunting task. It is even difficult to keep track of the media posted by a single person, or by oneself. Overview Part of a trend that began with simple innovations like personalized start pages, RSS aggregation, and customizable widgets, the personal web is a term coined to represent a collection of technologies that confer the ability to reorganize, configure and manage online content rather than just viewing it. As a result, people of all ages are creating customized, personal web-based environments to support their social, professional, and learning activities using whatever tools they prefer. This transformation is gaining momentum. Collaborative work, too, is easier than ever before. Library Research. For Further Reading
Personal learning environments 3 years on | Enactivist I’m enrolled on PLENK 2010 and look forward to seeing how the debate on personal learning environments has developed over the last 3 years. In 2007 I was interested in the relationship between the emerging PLE and the traditional LMS / VLE (that is, if a technology only 15 years old can be called ‘traditional’) and gave a presentation at the NZ Moodle Moot on the topic ‘Can MOODLE become more SUPPLE ?’ Since then I’ve had to explore the limitations of Blackboard in relation to the same question – to what extent is it possible to develop a PLE space for learners in an institutional context dominated by the lecture as the default mode of on-campus teaching, with the corresponding mirroring of transmission-pedagogy in the default use of the LMS ? I think that while the PLE debates (and diagrams ! have become a lot more nuanced and complex, we haven’t really seen a shift away from the LMS into a setting where the PLE becomes the default mode of online engagement for learners.
Bridge to Learning - Educational Research Graham Attwell is Director of Pontydysgu. He is an Associate Fellow, Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick and a Gastwissenschaftler at the Insititut Technik und Bildung, University of Bremen. Born in 1953 he has a BA (Hons) degree in History from the University of Wales: Swansea College. He was previously Director of the Centre for Research and Educational Development at Gwent Tertiary College (1993-1996) and a Senior Researcher at the University of Bremen (1996-9) His experience includes: Technology-enhanced teaching and learning and web-based learning environment development: Specialised in research and development into pedagogies for Technology Enhanced Learning, Pontydysgu has organised a series of face to face and on-line workshops for teachers in producing Open Education resources. Graham Attwell is also Maria’s favourite philospher.
PLE, PLN, PKM --- I get it, it's about the P, it's personal. I don't really think in terms of personal learning environments and personal learning networks but more in terms of personal knowledge management plan, which I see as more action oriented and focused. To implement my personal knowledge management plan, I use a number of tools and techniques (my Personal Learning Environment) and I draw upon the people within my network (Personal Learning Network). I'm still trying to figure this out but I don't want to spend too much time on terminology. It's personal in the sense that it is uniquely my creation and my responsibility. It's what works for me and what works for me is continually changing so I'd rather go with the flow rather than spent too much time defining what it is right now or what it has been in the past. I'm repeating myself.
Personal Learning Environments and the revolution of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development Developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky defined what the person or a student can do — or the problems they can solve — as three different stages: What a student can do on their own, working independently or without anyone’s help.What the student can do with the help of someone.What it is beyond the student’s reach even if helped by someone else. He called the second stage the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) which had, as said, two limits: the lower limit, which was set by the maximum level of independent performance, and the upper limit, the maximum level of additional responsibility the student can accept with the assistance of an able instructor. But Vygotsky believed that learning shouldn’t follow development, but rather should lead it. A student should constantly be reaching slightly beyond their capabilities rather than working within them (Jo Turner-Attwell, 2009). This reaching beyond one’s capabilities can be pictured as the student entering their Zone of Proximal Development.
Mapping my PLE/PLN for PLENK2010 I started out mapping out all the tools and doing a real diagram but that's like trying to understand how my brain works and I don't care that much about the details. The point of the diagram above is that most of the annoyances I encounter with my PLE/PLN have to do with the bipolar nature of the beast. There's "WORK", which is quite interesting, but constrained by "this is a government computer" types of issues, and there are PERSONAL/PROFESSIONAL" interests beyond work. There are work-tools and personal tools. There are rules and confusing policies. Personal learning network A personal learning network is an informal learning network that consists of the people a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from in a personal learning environment. In a PLN, a person makes a connection with another person with the specific intent that some type of learning will occur because of that connection.[1][2] The following is an excerpt from Dryden's and Vos' book on learning networks:[4] "For the first time in history, we know now how to store virtually all humanity's most important information and make it available, almost instantly, in almost any form, to almost anyone on earth. Personal learning networks share a close association with the concept of personal learning environments. Aspects[edit] One aspect is that the learner contribute and derive knowledge in a PLE through various nodes.[3] In this way, the learner chooses which PLEs, VLEs, and social media to build a PLN. Recognition of PLNs[edit] See also[edit] References[edit] External links[edit]
#PLENK2010 Thoughts on Fiedler and Väljataga’s Paper, Personal learning environments: concept or technology? I agree with Sebastian and Terje’s paper on this point: “The development of Personal Learning Environments represents a significant shift in pedagogic approaches to how we support learning processes” . . . “(and it) is not a separate space on the internet, it is an essential part of the users’ workspace”. As S&T point out, many people are already experiencing a self-directed life in the digital realm, often with an essential PLE workspace, and they are finding that traditional institutional power and pedagogical relationships are incompatible with this new world. Just from a practical point of view, PLEs are usually embedded in users workflow and daily routine. Classroom activities are not and can seem contrastingly irrelevant to one’s daily activities. In addition to the specific socio-historical incompatibility that Sebastian and Terje point out, I also think that there are more incompatibilities lurking behind the academy’s veil. I also agree with their concluding remarks: P.S.
How to Create a Robust and Meaningful Personal Learning Network [PLN] This post describes how educators can develop a personal learning network that supports meaningful and relevant learning. The MOOC, Education Technology & Media, etmooc, is used here as a working example of how to develop a PLN. “My Personal Learning Network is the key to keeping me up-to-date with all the changes that are happening in education and how technology can best support and engage today’s students.” Brian Metcalfe: teacher, blogger at lifelonglearners.com A visual image of participants in an open, online course- etmooc, which shows the potential to find and create personal connections as part of one’s PLN. I wrote a post recently about how to develop a personal learning environment [PLE], the need and benefits of doing so, for educators in particular. What is a PLN? Twitter 6×6 (Photo credit: Steve Woolf) Logo for etmooc from etmooc.org In the etmooc we are primarily using Google+ Community , Blackboard Collaborate and Twitter to interact. Resources Like this: Like Loading...
E-flections - 5 C’s of Building a PLE? Jump to Comments This is a draft of a position paper I’m writing for my university, the University of the Arts London, on digital literacy and PLE’s, any thoughts or comments welcome, especially on how useful the 5 ‘c” idea is as a way to simplify the attributes needed #PLENK2010 Summary 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. They should be able to engage in 5 core competencies of curation, critique, creation, collaboration, and communication To produce digitally-literate graduates we need to: • Enable students to build their own personal learning environment/network • Provide relevant, situated online learning experiences aligned with the core competencies of curation, critique, creation, communication & collaboration • Lead by example 5 Core Competencies
How To Create a ‘Personal Learning Environment’ to Stay Relevant in 2013 “Our understanding of learning has expanded at a rate that has far outpaced our conceptions of teaching. A growing appreciation for the porous boundaries between the classroom and life experience…has created not only promising changes but also disruptive moments in teaching.” EDUCAUSE Review, 2012 This quote from Disrupting Ourselves: The Problem of Learning in Higher Education (Bass, 2012), gives a good a reason as any for educators to develop a Personal learning Environment [PLE]; a space where we can keep up with the experimental modes of learning, instruction, changing pedagogy and instructional methods that surfaced in 2012. Three Reasons Why Educators Need a PLEEducation is in a phase of disruption (not news to anyone)—and it’s not just a blip or a bump, but is what Harvard professor and author Clayton Christenson describes as disruptive innovation. We need to disrupt ourselves: The model of higher education is at a turning point. Closing Thoughts Resources: Like this: