Personal learning environment (PLE)

A buzzword is making the rounds in education, namely the Personal Learning Environment (PLE). Basically it describes the digital tools you use to gather information, to connect with others and to produce content of your own as you engage in learning. It is sometimes mentioned in connection with a Personal Learning Network (PLN), which describes the people you interact with in learning and who enable you to make progress. Chris Duke (an educational technologist and instructional designer with over 15 years of professional experience in education) has developed a model as part of a survey which I think provides key insight into how technologies are being used today. Have a look at his diagram:
Chart by Chris Duke, www.cmduke.com

1. As you can see, Chris Duke uses Microsoft Office products, Blogger et al. to generate content.

2. He manages his information by surfing using Firefox and Google (both of which provide tools to help you categorize that information). I'm not familiar with the ATM or the Z or the blue logos - do you recognize any of them?

3. He connects with others mostly through Facebook, as well as through GoogleMail and Second Life (the eye). And he is an instructor in Second Life, so he has placed the logo close to the field for generating content.

Now, at the hub of all of this are his GoogleReader RSS feeds - the feeds of things he publishes, the feeds of blogs his contacts publish and the information he collects and organizes. And he also uses Twitter, which works very much the same way. These three functions seem to merge into one at the center.

My PLE chart looks quite similar:

1. For content generation, I'd add the audiovisual iMac tools I use, as well as WordPress and Drupal (the content management system we use at Spotlight). I create content in Moodle, too, (e.g. tests, discussion points for the forums, assignments) but Moodle is more about organizing and managing information and contacts in a specific course. (What I sorely lack are slidemaking and photoediting skills.)

2. I'd add Delicious (http://delicious.com/ahodgson) to the list of applications I use to organize my information (I don't really share links using Delicious, though you can). I use Moodle to manage courses, so that, too, would go under managing information. I'm not sure what the CMS system is called that we have at MELTA (our teachers' organisation), where I organize membership data. (I'd say that organizing information, or using these tools really effectively, is my weakest point.)

3. I'd add a few sites to the social networking list, especially Ning, which allows you to network with people who share your interests. Social networking has replaced email as my preferred mode of communicating. (Networking is time consuming and sometimes a little confusing, but as I am an interpersonal learner, it's proving to be my richest resource.)

It's really quite difficult to compartmentalize each of these applications, because when it comes down to it, most of them cross over into other categories. E.g., I find that I process information by reviewing it, so I learn by creating a mashup of the input I find on the Internet. This is called "remixing", and while it's making traditional publishers uncomfortable, it's standard practice in blogging and YouTubing (if that verb doesn't exist yet, it should). Also, any information you put out on the Web can attract people to your social network and be food for collaborative thought. Still, I really like Chris Duke's analytical and thought-provoking model.

Go visit his site if you are interested in taking part in his survey.

And write to us here at Ask Auntie Web: Which tools do you use?

PS: I've just seen the slideshow by Steve Wheeler from the Faculty of Education at the University of Plymouth (aka Timbuckteeth on Twitter, great person to follow) here, and he slices self-organized learning into "Personal space" and "Community space":
http://www.slideshare.net/timbuckteeth/self-organisation-and-virtual-learning

Kevin Spacey tweets with David Letterman

This one is especially for John and a couple of other people I know:

Media Futurist featured on Tech Crunch and initially saw it via Heike Philp. Kevin Spacey on Twitter.

Twitter Search in Plain English

Lee Lefever explains how Twitter Search creates new opportunities for business feedback, tracking news in real time and discovering trends.

Twitter for teaching or for staffroom teacher talk?

Twitter, the microblogging tool that allows you to relay short updates in real time and see what others are saying, has yet to really take off here in Germany. My own students (mostly business people whom I teach in small classes or one2one) don't use it, so I don't currently need to develop didactics for it. But if you are teaching at college and have classes with over 20 people, you should really think about using it to allow all of them to express themselves and to let everyone see what they are saying. Look at how Monika Rankin used Twitter at the University of Texas at Dallas in a history class of 90 (!) students, where "small class quality" simply is not an option (from Read Write Web; see Rankin's own summary here):


Burcu Akyol wrote a nice reflective summary on Twitter in her blog.

Shelly Terrell is setting up a free EFL discussion group called Twitter Discussions on EduFire and is discussing the procedure and her experience in her blog. Very interesting!

My colleagues here in Munich have expressed many, many reservations towards Twitter, primarily that it's a huge waste of time. I'll admit spending too much time on Twitter myself. In fact, I've already experienced Twitter burnout from getting too much valuable input that left me feeling totally stressed out by a huge to-do list. Yes, you read correctly: Too much valuable information. Because Twitter is anything but a medium for hollow chitchat. On the contrary, it is very dense communication, a few words and a link among people who have chosen to follow each other because they share the same kind of interests. It's very much like being at a perpetual Special Interest Group subconference. What turns me off is too much reciprocal back-patting and grooming. You tend to lose perspective when you keep reminding your in-group how brilliant you all are. But that comes with the terrain and you sort of need to filter it out. Once you've got that down you can concentrate on getting fabulous tips from colleagues, staffroom style.

Update: Nik Peachey wrote an article on building a useful Twitter network here: http://tinyurl.com/qzyfgo. He also wishes us good luck with the blog. Thank you!

Stephen Fry on digital natives

Do you ever wonder whether the "digital natives" John was talking about yesterday can write a text message, watch a YouTube video, do their homework on paper, all at the same time, and still be listening to you? I sometimes wonder, but übergeek Stephen Fry seems to think it's no problem. He contributed to a broadcast by Kenan Malik on BBC Radio 4 that asked whether the web is rewiring the brains of young people, and if so, whether we should be worried. A prolific user of twitter himself (http://twitter.com/stephenfry), Stephen Fry has only positive things to say about his own experience. The experts are saying that kids today may not be reading and researching the way older generations did, their attention spans may be shorter, but they can switch quickly between different media and use the huge amounts of information there in new ways. But are they multi-tasking or multi-slacking? Listen to the 28 minute broadcast as a podcast (an mp3 download) and read or print out Stephen Fry's comments here: BBC News.

About two years ago Stephen Fry talked about the potential of the internet for learning in an interview recorded for www.videojug.com, a video sharing site. Did you know that you can download the videos there? It's easy, you just need to register there. Here is Stephen:


Understanding The Internet: Stephen Fry: The Internet

Microblogging

Microblogging is a cross between text messaging and blogging. Twitter, for example, only lets you type 140 characters in each post. Your own microblog posts can be displayed alongside those of your friends allowing you to have (public) text conversations with them. Other microblogging applications, such as Pownce, let you write more in each post and even embed pictures and video. The very brevity of microblogging makes it less daunting, and some say, can encourage students to write more succinctly. So far, microblogging hasn't reached mainstream classrooms, but you can find some interesting suggestions on this blog: http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2008/twitter-for-academia/

Auntie Web's twitter name is ask_AuntieWeb