Personalised learning environments (PLEs)

May 25th, 2008 by jcollareda in Learning and Innovation

The WWW has changed so much in the past 10 years with many easy to use tools that make it simple to engage in using the web for learning, networking and connecting with friends and family. I use many of these tools in my work and social life. I store links to these tools on my Protopage  , my personalised learning environment, that is web based which means I can access this page anywhere from any computer. I am no longer hindered by having to remember links to important sites, can tag great sites in del.ic.ious, upload my photos to Flickr and share with friends and family, document my research on eLearning in my wiki, post my ideas on my blog and aggregate all the blogs I am reading by RSS in Bloglines.

My PLE is customised to meet my needs and changes regularly as I discover new tools, and move onto new projects. This is the great power of having a PLE that is customizable and accessible. On the other hand virtual learning environments (VLEs) tend to be more locked down ie controlled by an organisation rather than the individual and so much less customisable. In teaching and learning many connect VLEs with learning management systems (LMSs) and think that by adding a wiki and blog this opens up the LMS to current web 2.0 technologies. This is not the case because the very nature of web 2.0 is to allow people to connect on the WWW. LMSs are locked down i.e you need a user name and password to join and are not visible on the open web so by their very nature prevent connecting. Although it can be argued that those within the LMS can better able to connect using this type of software. LMSs restrict who you can connect with so limits opportunities for learning. Although it could be argued that in some cases in learning environments this may be desirable. The other argument for VLEs is that we need to be able to record student learning in one place i.e the LMS but again it could be disputed that with personalised and flexible learning, student learning experiences and assessment will and should occur in multiple different environments e.g online, in the workplace, in the classroom etc. and so recording activity and assessment also needs to be flexible and captured in multiple ways.

Teaching and learning in the 21st Century is complex and multi faceted but it is also exciting and as educators we are only limited by our imagination. I am interested in your thoughts on this hot topic!

Julie