PLEs
I have been interested in the potential of IT to enhance and add flexibility to teaching and learning since 1984 when I did a post graduate teaching certificate at Huddersfield polytechnic in Yorkshire. Throughout my career to date at the University of Leeds I have been involved with developing e-learning and supporting staff in its use to enhance their teaching and support student learning. This has mainly been in the context of large scale institutionally owned, managed and controlled virtual learning environments like Bodington.org and Blackboard.
However, increasingly over the last five years I have become interested in educational and learning issues that go far beyond the boundaries of formal educational institutions. These interests can be briefly encapsulated under the headings of life long learning, the ‘expert’ learner, vicarious and informal learning processes and digital citizenship. To this end I am looking in depth at discussions and implementations of e-portfolios and personal and social learning environments (PLEs and SLEs) with a particular focus on open source applications and free (or inexpensive) hosted web applications. These freely available applications and web services enable individuals, interest groups and organisations of all sizes to put togther on-line environments that integrate communication tools and resources that replicate many of the tools and features of expensive and complex institutionally managed virtual learning environments but without the costs and institutional control and ownership.
Key Resources
Graham Attwell’s definitive positional paper on PLEs Personal Learning Environments
Special Edition of Interactive Learning Environments, Personal Learning Environments, Volume 16 Issue 1 2008
Scott Wilson’s Work Blog
Wikipedia entry on The History of Personal Learning Environments