1.2+PLE_example

 **My Personal Learning Environment** By Jane

PLEs are often compared to Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Blackboard, Angel and Moodle. One way to think of a PLE is as a web based environment that would serve the same purposes as an LMS but would be owned and controlled by the learner rather than the educational institution/teacher. In this view the PLE offers a one stop virtual work space in which the learner: 
 * communicates with co-learners and experts **//: through email, webinars, skype, chat, blog comments… //**
 * collects and accesses learning objects **//: pdfs, blog links, videos, problem statements… //**
 * creates and stores content **//: notes, papers, blog posts, wiki contributions, tweets, videos, images, cad diagrams, mindmaps… //**
 * shares products with other learners and interested people **//: shared docs, blog, wiki, tweets, videos, images, cad diagrams, mindmaps… //**
 * ecords goals and deadlines **//: calendaring, todo lists //**
 * collaborate on meaning making and the creation of products **//<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: wiki and other collaborative web 2.0 type tools for co-authorship and co-construction //**



<span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> We have a few free online tools that can approach this idea. But it is not clear that LMS is the gold standard. Is this all-in-one approach completely desirable? In the following paragraphs I explore this question as I describe what tools can be used to approximate these goals, and what are their benefits and limitations. I offer a view of my own PLE and discuss the limitations and opportunities it affords. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;">

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Why not stick to LMS** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Learning Management Systems (LMS) can be viewed as an online classroom. It is a software solution used to offer all or part of the materials, instruction and activities provided in a face to face classroom to students learning at their computers. The LMS is a browser based product installed by the teacher/institution and is accessible to learners wherever they have an internet connection. In distance courses, the learner interacts with the learning materials, the instructor and fellow students through the LMS program. In a blended course (part face-to-face, part distance) the learner may be directed by the teacher to use the LMS for specific learning activities.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Proponents of PLE’s note at least three limitations of LMS. 1. The tools and data found in the LMS belong to the school/teacher. Just like the classroom, the layout, and design of the LMS are the teacher’s and the materials provided by the teacher or contributed by the students are accessible to the students only as long as the school policy provides. 2. The LMS is a bounded and impermeable space for a specific course, specific participants, during a specific period of time. The boundedness of an LMS provides a level of security desirable by institutions. However the barrier between class and outside world limits the ability of learners to interact with learners in other courses, members of the discipline about which the course explores and specialists. It is also challenging to bring outside materials into the space. Teachers are limited by the file types accepted by the LMS and students are limited by permissions. 3. While LMS programs have developed over time to include some of the tools commonly used in online collaboration, tools such as wikis, blogs, chat and multimedia are limited and usually inferior to tools available on the open Internet.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Dashboards as an LMS replacement**

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Figure #3 Screenshots of Jane’s iGoogle and Netvibes dashboards//

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A dashboard can serve as an individualized alternative to an LMS. Sometimes called a personal home page, a dashboard is a website the learner opens when they start up their browser. It offers easy access to the tools and internet content that the learner prefers through a collection of widgets or gadgets chosen by the learner. A dashboard might contain the headlines from the users favorite news services, the current weather, events calendar, bookmarks to websites and other internet content, a preview of the learners most recent email, access to documents the learner has created or uses. A class might agree to use the same type of dashboard (iGoogle, Netvibes, PageFlakes, Yahoo.com) and link to similar content.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The learner lays out the page to meet her learning goals and needs, while maintaining links to shared resources and course content. She has control over the space. She can integrate into one dashboard the content, contacts and tools from multiple courses or inquiries. When the course is over her content stays on her dashboard. And without the boundaries of the LMS course, she can interact with, follow, meet up with content specialists independently or as a class.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> While dashboards are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with a rich array of tools for accessing and filtering content, they are still limited. Each dashboard product excels in one type of content manipulation gadget over another. iGoogle is great for previewing and linking to social media while Netvibes excels at keyword data filtering and rss feeds.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**My PLE** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My PLE is more powerful than a dashboard. It is also messier. My PLE is a collection of notional learning spaces, rather than the view through one piece of software. My PLE is more of a map than a stop along the way.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> While my PLE includes two dashboards it is not contained within the dashboard(s). I am defining my PLE as the space in which I learn. In earlier times I might have included in addition to my classroom, my desk at home and possibly the library.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> If we are to embrace a new kind of learning for the knowledge age (if this becomes part of a bucket, more needs to be said about “knowledge age”), then our guide must be how we <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//**might learn**// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and not how <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//**we have learned**// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Current dashboard tools offer an alternative to LMS, that is under the control of the learner. But they do not offer the flexibility and immediacy needed as we learn to be better learners. Though quicker to include new tools and resources than LMS developers, dashboard gadget developers are behind the creative curve in managing and manipulating data. Gadgets are typically portable imitations of creative approaches to find, filter, create, share and recombine content. They respond to the demand of users rather than leading the way for users.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Today my PLE looks something like the image above. Tomorrow as I learn about learning from my SLN, I will takeup – if not create – new tools and strategies that will become part of my PLE.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**The challenge for learners and educators**

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> While the benefits of personal learning goals, learning strategies and learning tools has been well documented in the educational literature (need citations), the cost of individualization is high. As educators release control of the spaces in which learners work, learners must take increasing responsibility <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//**and**// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> develop the skills necessary to do so. In the classroom we may use strategies to help students develop metacognition, the ability to think about one’s thinking process. We may model techniques of self regulated learning such as goal setting, help seeking and reflection. In online learning environments learners must develop metacognitive and self regulatory skills in order to take control of their learning and the environment in which it occurs. Additionally learners need to become aware of and technically proficient at using a wide range of on line communication, collaboration and creation tools.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Last modified 3/22/2011