Personal learning-environments-

Personal
Learning
Environments
Graham Attwell

Personal Learning
Environments - a concept
based on Web 2 .0 and social
software

We are at present undergoing a deep
and prolonged industrial revolution
based on digital technologies

The reform and reshaping of
social systems and
institutions has tended to lag
behind in periods of rapid
technological change

Profound innovations in technology
tend to be reflected in older paradigms

for example the ‘virtual classroom’ or the ‘Virtual
Learning Environment’

It is not the development
of technology per se
which poses such a
challenge to education
systems and educational
institutions

but the changing ways in which people
are using technologies to
communicate and to learn and the
accompanying social effect of such use

forming and participating in on-line social networks and communities

The reaction of education systems and institutions
to the rise of social networking has been at best
bewilderment, at worst downright hostility

a refusal to engage in these issues risks
school becoming increasingly irrelevant to
the everyday lives of many young people

and particularly
irrelevant to the ways
in which they
communicate and
share knowledge

Web 2.0 allows
young people to
be active co-
creators of
knowledge

We have to review the industrial schooling
model including the organisation of
institutions and pedagogy and curriculum

It is not just young people who
use social software for learning

Social software is
widely used in the
workplace for
informal learning

Most informal learning is learner driven,
problem based, or motivated by interest

Google is the most used e-learning application

people learn through legitimate
peripheral participation

Knowing is .... located in
relations among practitioners,
their practice, the artefacts of
that practice, and the social
organization…of communities
of practice
Lave and Wenger, 1991

Lurking is a means of becoming
integrated in distributed
communities of practice

In such communities of practice formal
learning materials are seldom used

We have ignored the vast potential of freely
available ‘objects’ of all kinds for learning purposes.

changes in the way in which we learn and develop new
competences is a challenge to our traditional subject
organisation

And although most countries have adopted a
rhetoric of lifelong learning, there is little sign
that education systems have sufficiently
changed to facilitate such a movement.

How can we support
lifelong competence
development?

Personal Learning
Environments have
the potential to meet
such a challenge

PLEs are not another
substantiation of educational
technology but a new
approach to learning

A response to pedagogic approaches which require
that learner’s e-learning systems need to be under the
control of the learners themselves.

and recognise the needs of life-long learners for a system
that provides a standard interface to different institutions’
e-learning systems, and that allows portfolio information
to be maintained across institutions.

Learning is now seen
as multi episodic,
with individuals
spending occasional
periods of formal
education and
training throughout
their working life.

PLE are based on the idea that
learning will take place in
different contexts and situations
and will not be provided by a
single learning provider

the idea of a Personal Learning
Environment recognises that
learning is continuing and seeks to
provide tools to support that
learning

Using whatever tools and
devices which the learners
choose

It also recognises the role of the individual in
organising their own learning

PLEs can help in the
recognition of informal
learning

PLEs can develop on the
potential of services oriented
architectures for dispersed and
networked forms of learning
and knowledge development.

“the heart of the concept of the PLE
is that it is a tool that allows a
learner (or anyone) to engage in a
distributed environment consisting of
a network of people, services and
resources. It is not just Web 2.0, but
it is certainly Web 2.0 in the sense
that it is (in the broadest sense
possible) a read-write application.”
Stephen Downes, 2006

The promise of Personal
Learning Environments could
be to extend access to
educational technology to
everyone who wishes to
organise their own learning.

The ‘pedagogy’ behind the PLE – if
it could be still called that – is that
it offers a portal to the world,
through which learners can
explore and create, according to
their own interests and directions,
interacting at all times with their
friends and community

the PLE will challenge the existing
education systems and institution

New forms of
learning are based
on trying things and
action, rather than
on more abstract
knowledge.

Policies to support the development
and implementation of PLEs

encouraging and supporting
the development of
communities of practice and
engagement in those
communities

decisions over funding and
support need to be taken as
close to practice as possible

a broader
understanding of digital
literacy and its
integration within the
curriculum s

recognise different
forms and contexts of
learning

the development and
adoption of new
pedagogies

the co-shaping of
technologies bringing
together techies and
teachers, enterprises and
institutions

Thanks for
Listening
Wales Wide Web -www.knownet.com/writing/weblogs/Graham_Attwell

Personal learning-environments-

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